Heaven
by The Dali Llama
Summary: The movie, right up until Danny's death. He lives in this story, and he has to deal with the issues he's created for himself back home. He's about out of his mind, recovering from a brutal crash, and to top it off this new girl keeps pushing into his life
1. Chapter 1

Crashing the plane into a group of Japanese soldiers seemed easier than the struggle of staying conscious now. Danny felt as if his eyelids suddenly weighed as much as lead, and the rest of him felt even heavier. He hoped that maybe if he could keep his eyes open, he'd gradually be able to move to moving his fingers, and then his arms, and then the rest of him. To his dismay, the only thing he felt then was a sharp pain in his neck.

Gunshots rang out, and all he could do was hope that his friends weren't the ones being shot at. Then came shouting, and he thought he heard his name being called. He tried to shout, but all that came out was a feeble croak.

"Danny." Rafe was in front of him now. His best friend was covered in mud and whatever else, his expression anxious, but otherwise he seemed fine.

"Rafe," Danny's voice came out hoarse, and he tried to make a move to get up. Another sharp pain prevented him from getting very far. Rafe said something he failed to comprehend.

"I got something in my neck," Danny told him, clenching his teeth as he tried to keep from crying out. Rafe murmered softly and tried to get the piece of debri that had lodged itself into Danny's neck. It hurt so much Danny felt the need to spit out every curse word he knew. The tugging stopped briefly, and Danny caught sight of a soldier creeping up on them, gun ready. Before he could give any warning, Rafe was knocked to the ground and they were surrounded. The Japanese were shouting at them in their foreign tongue, and Danny felt metal jab against his temple. Realizing he had a gun to his head, he automatically squeezed his eyes shut, sucking in and inhaling what he thought were going to be his last breaths of air.

Danny was yanked off the ground by the Japanese soldier, and his arms strapped into some kind of big clunky form of handcuffs that went over his neck. The pressure of the wood hurt against his wound, but the rush of adrenaline somewhat eased the pain. He looked to his best friend, on the ground, blood trickling down his face, trying to convey one last apology through his eyes to Rafe while the soldier started to tug at his binds and he was forced to follow.

The sound of gun shot rang, and then another. Danny saw the soldier who had a hold on him drop dead into the grass. He turned and saw Rafe, gun in hand, firing at another soldier who dropped dead as well. Rafe aimed again, but when he pulled the trigger, all he got was a faint click. The soldier who had been his target pulled his rifle up and aimed at Rafe, but Danny pushed forward in a last minute effort to save his friend and hit the soldier with the wooden contraption he was bound too.

His triumph was short lived however, when he felt a sharp sting in his lower back, and then his shoulder. He stumbled and then fell, his face meeting the cold mud. There was more shouting and gunfire, chaos around him. Danny felt helpless with his cheek pressed into the mud, unable to use his arms that were held tightly in their constraints. All he could do is lay there and hope for the best while he slwoly felt the life draining out of him.

"Danny!"

Rafe pulled his hands from the ties and flipped Danny over. Danny watched Raye's eyes as they surveyed his own shaking form. He heard Rafe curse under his breath.

"Hold on now, Danny, hold on now—"

"Rafe, I'm not…gonna make it," he breathed, knowing the time for him to go was emminent. He even found himself wishing death would come sooner and just get it over with.

"Yes you are, You hear me?" Rafe insisted, taking Danny and shaking him by the shoulders a little, a wild look in his eyes, "You're all right, you're gonna make it."

Danny felt tears spill over, clouding his vision.

"Listen to me you can't die. You know why? 'Cause you're gonna be a father," Rafe told him, his voice cracking at the last word. There was a pregant pause at the confession. Danny was frozen. _Father_? What had he done? The whole situation had been jacked up as it is, and now he found he'd actually messed things up even more and gotten Evelyn _pregnant_. As if her life had not beeen complicated enough as it was. He exhaled deeply, Evelyn's pretty face flashing through his mind. He remebered taking her on the plane at sunset, surrounded by deep oranges and pinks of the Pearl Harbor sunset, her laugh filling the cockpit when he surprised her with a barrel roll. He wanted to grab onto that image, hold it, use it to pull himself back up, but he couldn't. It broke his heart.

"You're gonna be a daddy. You're gonna be a father," Rafe repeated, bringing Danny back to the present, "Please…" Rafe looked at him hopefully, and Danny' heart hurt even more now, more than any other part of his aching body. Danny felt his throat tighten with tears. He struggled to keep them back. He felt Rafe pull him close, like he was trying to hold onto him, keep death from taking him. Danny took a deep breath, making sure his next words would be clear, and then spoke:

"Now you are," he whispered to Rafe, looking at his desperate and frantic, dirt-smudged face, matching it with a calm expression, trying to assure him everything was going to be alright. In his heart, he knew everything would turn out alright. He knew that in exchange for his life he'd helped his friend, his brother, and he hated to leave Evelyn, pregnant with a child, _his_ child, but he knew Rafe would be there for her. _It will all work out_, he told himself.

His mind at peace, the world faded to black.

There was a low murmuring, like a heart beat, thumping softly and somewhat unrythmically. It gradually got louder, until it was recognizable not a a irregular heart beat, but in fact voices. Danny heard voices, but it was all still black. He always pictured heaven being a little.. brighter.

Danny started to believe that maybe he hadn't gone to heaven. Maybe his last few weeks had screwed up his record he guessed God had been keeping and instead he had gone to Hell.

A loud laugh out of the blue startled him, and Danny found he could open his eyes. He squinted, trying to see clearly. The world was a blur, or wherever he was anyway, was a blur of dull colors, mostly grey. He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked them, trying to adjust his eyes.

_Where in the hell am I? _Danny wondered, when he heard another booming laugh. It kind of hurt, considering his head was throbbing. He made out a low, metal looking ceiling. He tried to lift his head and look around, but his body was aching, and felt to heavy to move.

"He's comin' around, boys," he heard someone say, a low, gruff grumble of a voice.

"Danny? You awake?"

Danny recognized Rafe's voice. Danny groaned inwardly.

"Don't tell me you're dead too, Rafe," Danny mumbled, a great sinking feeling in his chest, "I die trying to save you and you go and get yourself killed anyways… Typical." Too think that all of his efforts had gone to waste.

There were mutlitiple chuckles that once again surprised Danny and Rafe's face came into view, all smiles and bandages.

"I'm not dead, Danny, and neither are you," Rafe told him, "Look here-" and then Danny felt a good pinch on his arm and he flinched.

"Ow, Damn it," Danny lifted his head even though it felt like it was on the verge of exploding, "You didn't need to pinch me, I could have figured it out." Despite the confusion, and the irritableness he was feeling, Danny couldn't help smile. He thought for sure he was dead, and that Rafe had died as well. He tried to get up, hoping to figure out just exactly where he was, but Rafe forced him back down.

"Stay down, you still need to rest a bit. We're on our way back now," Rafe told him, and then Gooz came into view as well. Gooz seemed pretty alright, besides a thick bandage over the left side of his head and a couple cuts and bruises here and there.

"Hey there, partner," Gooz nodded at him, a little smirk on his face, "You almost got us killed with your little kamikaze stunt." Danny gave another little, somewhat painful smile.

"Glad to see you're alright, Gooz," Danny said. Looking between the two of them a couple of times, he then added, "How long have I been out?"

"Three days," Rafe supplied, "You sort of woke up a couple times but I don't think you had a clue what was going on. You were talking gibberish."

"Three days..?" Danny's eyes widened at this piece of information. How could he have been out for three days? He didn't remember anything back after he checked out in China.

"Yeah, and we'll tell you all about it when we get back," Rafe assured Danny, nudging him back down. Danny hadn't realized it, but he leaned forward a bit, "Now you get to sleep. You still need more rest."

Danny suddenly felt drowsy at the mention of sleep. He briefly wondered how he could sleep for three days and still be tired. He must have been roughed up pretty bad. He tried to keep his mind active by thinking of how he was going to talk to Evelyn when they got back. He remembered what Rafe at told him, when he'd been on the verge of death, about him being a father. The simple thought was exhausting enough to tip him over the edge into sleep.


	2. AN

Alright so I realize I forgot an explanation in the ffirst chapter.

First of all, the disclaimer!

I don't own any of the movie or anything, just throwing that out there.. None of the chracters are mine and yada yada yada.

Now, a summary!

I decided I wanted to do this, evn though its been done a couple times, where Danny lives. I love Danny so much, I couldn't stand the fact that he died! He was definitely one nice speciment of country boy. Yeehaw ;)

Anyways, Danny comes home, has to face his problems, aand on top of it he has another woman pushing her way into his life even though he really would rather avoid people for a period of time. What will happen? Guess you'll just have to read to find out ha.

Well, thanks anyways for reading the first chapter, I'll have the next one up quickly.

Ciao, darlings

:)


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2: Taking Care of Business

* * *

The next time Danny woke up, he was in the Pearl Harbor navy hospital, confined to a hospital bed. He wasn't allowed to even get out of bed until the third day he'd been there, and all he'd been allowed was a short walk outside the hospital with Rafe and Evelyn, which had been a little difficult with his wounds, but refreshing none the less.

He thought it would have been more awkward than it was, the walk, but it seemed the three of them were just content the others were alive.

Danny knew in his heart, that Evelyn and Rafe belonged to eachother. He still loved Evelyn, more than he wished, but he knew that he couldn't love her in such ways, because her heart really belonged to Rafe. He knew it the day he'd seen her running after Rafe's train that day he went off to fight for the Allies. What they had, was a simple thing that blossomed out of two hurting people in search of comfort. They'd been there for eachother, and they'd seen eachother in their most fragile state. It was a rare thing where Danny poured his heart out to someone, and ince he'd entrusted her with so much of his grief, he couldn't help but love her in the end.

The relationship of comfort they had established however, did not exaclty turn out how they'd planned, and now Evelyn had a baby bump from Danny's child and all the while she couldn't help but stare at Rafe in such a way that made Danny, although he hated to admit it, extremely jealous.

Danny thought that Evelyn didn't even realize she was looking at Rafe with so much love sometimes, and the same with Rafe when he couldn't help but brush his hand against hers or rest his hand on her back. Evelyn still worked at the hospital, and Rafe visited frequently, so he saw these tensions often. And the worst part was that both of them were trying to deny the fact that they couldn't bear to be apart so they wouldn't upset Danny.

Now Danny had had enough of this tension. He'd always heard if you love something, you let it go.

"Good morning, Danny," Evelyn greeted, brandishing a breakfast of pancakes and fruit, a glass of orange juice on the side. The smell was heavenly, Danny thought. He smiled warmly at Evelyn as she placed the tray on the table beside Danny's bed and perched lightly on the edge.

"Mornin'" Danny returned, glancing at the bump under Evelyn's nurse uniform quickly. It still took him by urprise everytime. She proceeded to ask him how he was doing, to which he answered fine, and then she went on to checking his wounds. Danny had a mild concussion, had been shot twice, had a puncture in his neck he was lucky they hadn't pulled out at the sight of the crash, or else he may have bled to death, and a broken arm accompanied by a few fractured ribs. Not to mention a handful of bruises and cuts, but those were healing up quickly. He considered himself one lucky bastard. The whole time she checked him, Evelyn was a sweet and gentle as ever, making everything was going smoothly and neatly. She was so precise in it all it made him smile. Everything about her seemed collected and neat, which made him wonder how a man as reckless as Rafe ever ended up chasing her.

He watched her face, pretty as ever, as she looked him over. She seemed to have put a happy face on for him, but Danny could see she was torn on the inside.

"Ev," He said softly, to which she nodded to indicate she was listening while looking over a chart.

"Listen," he continued, in such a serious and soft tone that Evelyn tucked the shart under her arm and looked him in the eyes, wondering what it was he was going to say.

"Evelyn, you know I love you," Danny told her, reaching to take her hand with his good hand. She gave it a squeeze and smiled back softly, but there was a hint of sadness behind it as well.

"And I love you," she replied. Danny felt his heart ache a little. He held her hand a little tighter, struggling to hold her gaze.

"I also know you love Rafe," he continued, and at this her happy exterior crumbled a little. She didn't deny it though. There was no use in denying what was so obviously true. Her hand came to a rest on her baby bump.

"Danny-"

"Evelyn," Danny said her name softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze to stop her, "It's alright. I know that sometimes, when you love something, you have to let it go."

Evelyn just looked at him, and emotional turnmoil inside of her. He could see she was afraid that he was going to just leave her to deal with the kid all on her own. Danny looked for the right words to clear things up. He found it annoying how he'd gone over this so many times in his head, yet at the moment he was actually saying it, he struggled for the right words.

"Rafe is better for you than I am. He might be reckless sometimes, but you and him... its a good match. You keep him in line. You bring him home. You brought him back from the dead, Ev, you've got that much power," he smiled, and at this Evelyn bit back her own smile, "And you should know that I will always, alway be there for you and this kid. I'll change diapers, I'll buy bottles, everything a dad would do."

Evelyn seemed to relax a little at this, confirming that him not being there for the baby was the worst of her fears.

She sat lightly on the edge of his bed, placing the chart in her lap, and reached out and touched a hand to his cheek. She gave a sad little smile that made him ache a little on the inside, and lenaed forward to press her warm, red lips to his cheek.

"Thank you, Danny," she whispered, "I will always love you."

With that, she stood and left, heels clacking against the tile, so loud in the room that was empty beides Dannya couple other sleeping soldiers, and the dark-haired nurse leaving, taking a piece of his heart with her.


	4. Chapter 4

Danny had been out of the hospital for about a week. He was strangely relieved to be in the barracks again, surrounded by his friends and fellow soldiers. Sleeping in the hospital was an eerie experience, and Danny would often lie there, shifting positions, counting sheep. Nearly dyeing had shaken him up, and lieing in a hospital bed, where someone before him had perhaps died, caused the hair to rise on his neck. It's not that he was afraid of ghosts or anything ridiculous like that. It was the realization that in his mind, he'd been dead, and he'd been so content with it. He felt so guilty about it, that in a way, he was ready to take the easy way out of the problems he had caused and skip out when difficult decisions were to be made.

It was these reasons, and it was also the fact that the hospital was dead silent at night.

In the barracks, there was always the heavy breathing a person gets from deep sleep, accompanied by some snoring and maybe a man talking in his sleep. He had never felt so lonely in his life. Even when he was a kid, with no one but his father, he could always count on the heavy snoring of his father filling the little shack of their house.

Danny sat on his bed, reading a pamphlet on airplanes. He knew content of the pamphlet like the back of his hand, but there wasn't much else to do. He'd been there for an hour or so, wasting time. He wasn't allowed to train yet, since he wasn't completely healed, and training could prove difficult with a clunky cast on your arm. His days consisted of physical therapy, maybe a lecture, and then he'd go see if the airplanes needed some fixing up. He still had more time than he could handle, and alot of it he spent thinking. Thinking of Evelyn mostly. He figured he should pay her a visit, but he still felt a pain in his chest every time he saw her, and he just didn't feel up to facing her again. Unless she needed him, which she would probably never admit being the woman she was.

Danny sighed and figured he should pay her a visit tomorrow, check up pn her.

_You're losing it,_ he thought, when he realized all he'd thought about the past hour was Evelyn. He worried about her.

Danny thought maybe he should take a walk on the beach to clear his mind. And then he realized that the sun would go down in a bit, and he didn't really want to look at the sunset. It made him think of Evelyn.

"Danny! My favorite wing man!" Rafe said as he came bursting into the bunkroom, a big crackling ball of life, "How are you holding up?" Rafe sat on the bed beside him, his own bed, pulling off his dirty boots.

"I'm alright. How was the training today?" Danny asked, much less lively. He flicked the pamphlet onto the bedside table.

"Ah, it was boring as hell. Lucky you missed it. Anyways, we're going out tonight. You, me, and the boys," Rafe informed him, taking out a clean change of clothes, a somewhat tacky hawaiian shirt and a pair of slacks.

"Go on without me, I think I'll stay here tonight," Danny said, picking a piece of lint from his shirt and avoiding Rafe's gaze. He heard Rafe groan.

"Come on, you can't sulk in here forever," he said, "I mean, I appreciate what you did for me an all, but I don't want you to become a boring old spinster in here because of it."

"Rafe-" Danny started to protest, but Rafe cut him off.

"Danny, don't go wasting your life in here. I worked hard draggin' you're ass through China so we could get you back home alive. I won't sit here and let you brood the rest of your days away."

"Hey, remember the part where I saved your life? Twice?"

"Come on, Danny. I'll make you a deal," Rafe started, waiting til Danny looked at him, brow raised, "You come with me tonight, I won't bug you about it again until the rest of the week."

Danny pondered this a moment, before answering.

"Make it a month, and you're buying my beer tonight," Danny bartered, to which Rafe laughed and nodded.

"Alright, I'll buy you enough drinks for you and the good-lookin' nurse you'll meet tonight,"Rafe smiled, slapping Danny on the shoulder.

"I ain't meeting no girls, Rafe," Danny shook his head, an exasperated smile on his lips.

"You never know, bud. Just lighten up and have a good time tonight alright? Now get dressed," Rafe ordered before leaving to shower and change.

Danny sighed, rolling his eyes and getting to his feet.

* * *

Evelyn returned home, feeling considerably better after talking with Rafe. The head nurse had been in a particularly bitter mood today, snapping at anyone who tried to peep a word to her, which included Evelyn herself, who was feeling very pregnant that day.

She felt so much guilt for how easy it was to fall back into her pattern with Rafe, how easy it was to give her heart to him. She could tell sometimes that Rafe felt uneasy with the whole situation as well, knowing that his best friend probably still loved Evelyn, but had let her go anyways, so that she could come back to Rafe.

The whole thing was very complex and very exhausting.

That evening, her and Rafe had gone and got ice cream together, talking and laughing like they had when they'd first met, both in love even though they both felt unsure of the situation they were in.

Both knew however, that they had never felt so undeniably, inexplicably, _right_.

Near the end, Rafe had suddenly mentioned that Danny didn't leave the barracks, unless it was to fix planes or to go to physical therapy. He was brooding, and Rafe was concerned for his life long friend. He told her of how he was planning on getting him to go out tonight, whether he wanted to or not.

Evelyn, overwhelmed with guilt again, even though she knew it was not Rafe's intention to make her feel that way, agreed. Rafe asked if she might be able to bring a couple of friends out tonight, so that maybe Danny could get his mind off things and maybe even dance with a girl, have a little fun.

Now, she walked into the house shared between her and her nurse friends, ready to suggest a night out, something she knew they would eagerly agree too.

She heard laughter and loud voices echoing from the main room, and headed toward the noise.

Walking in, she came across the comical sight of Sandra and Martha, who looked to have been doing each others hair before they'd been caught in a laughing fit, and then Barbara and the new nurse Heaven standing on the coffee table. Evelyn laughed when he realized Heaven was doing a spot on impersonation of the head nurse, Barbara playing along and laughing as well. The only person missing was Betty. Evelyn felt her throat tighten slightly at the thought of her.

Barbara had curlers in her hair, and Heaven was in a pretty dress, a summery, light dress with a bright red rose print. Something told Evelyn that they had every intention of going out tonight anyways.

"Evelyn!" Martha called when she saw her standing there in the doorway, "Get dressed! We're going out tonight!"

"Evelyn!" Heaven echoed, "Can I please do your hair? Please!" The new nurse hopped down from the coffee table when Evelyn nodded, and proceeded to follow her up the stairs, asking about her day and such.

Evelyn smiled at the nurse, who was the youngest of them all. She'd gotten her diploma a month early from high school, so that she could come down and be a nurse. Heaven had long springy curls that were a light copper color and big green eyes. Most of the older nurses had doted on her when she first came because of her little stature, dimpled smile, and somewhat clumsy exterior. Evelyn was starting to see that once she got more comfortable, she was hardly serious but more about singing and dancing around in random bursts of energy.

Evelyn listened to her talk as she grabbed her dress. She had so much to say sometimes, and at others, she was perfectly content with being silent.

"That dress is gorgeous Ev, if you see Rafe tonight he's gonna have a cow," Heaven smiling when she saw Evelyn pull out a black silky dress that went to about the knees and was loose enough so that her baby bump was less noticeable.

"Thanks, Heaven," Evelyn smiled and put it on, sitting in the chair in front of the vanity, letting Heaven go at her hair. Heaven set to work twisting the front parts back, securing the hair with pins. Evelyn sat quiet for a moment before deciding to tell the young nurse about Danny. Evelyn felt she could trust Heaven, both because of the fact the girl was too sweet to spread rumors and that she was so superstitious that all you had to do was make her cross her heart and she wouldn't tell a soul in fear of dropping dead if she did.

"Heaven?" Evelyn asked, to which Heaven nodded, mouth full of pins. She continued, "I'm sure you remember me telling you about Danny? Well, he hasn't been doing so well lately, and I was wondering if perhaps... you could maybe offer to dance with him, or at least talk to him? He needs company."

Heaven took the pins out of her mouth and nodded, smiling in assurance.

"Of course," she said, fastening the final pin, "Alright, you're done. You look gorgeous! Now, I'm going to go do my own hair. I gotta look good if I'm going to be cheering flyboys up."

* * *

As the girls walked into the club, Heaven felt a flutter deep within her stomach. She was nervous to meet pilots. She remembered one of her friends describing the pilots and sailors to all be dashing enough to make a girls knees melt, with their trim forms and good manners.

Evelyn had asked her if perhaps she could talk to her friend, try and get him to smile a little or dance, which she had mentioned was less likely, considering Danny supposedly didn't like to dance.

_Who doesn't like to dance?_ she wondered incredulously, looking around. It was warm with people's body heat, and laughter and chatter filled the air, crackling with energy. She itched to get on the dance floor.

Evelyn started towards the tables, where friends sat and talked and drank. Heaven started to follow, and stopped when she saw one fine specimen of man that made her cheeks flush red and her stomach do flips.

"You see someone you like, hon?" Barbara inquired loudly in her ear, laughing softly and holding the smaller girls shoulders, trying to follow her gaze, "Where is he?"

"What makes you think that?" Heaven asked, a little quicker than she liked, she bounced a little under Barbara's hold.

"I know you do now, my little spastic friend, you're cheeks are bright red and I can practically hear your heart pounding through your ribs!" the blonde told her. Heaven looked for some sort of excuse.

"Well, it's just uh..so um..overwhelming with all the gorgeous men in here," Heaven tried, smiling meekly. Barbara rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"You're a bad liar," Barb stated before she tugged her along, to the table Evelyn was now seated at beside who she assumed was Rafe, the pilot she talked about when they got her loosened up enough to tell them all more about him. At that table however, was that same man that's tied her stomach in knots with just a good look at him. He had dark hair, with dark eyes that made her weak in the knees. She saw the outline that hinted broad shoulders and a trim frame beneath that shirt that hugged him in the right spots. She tried to escape but Barbara had a fairly good hold on her.

"Hello boys!" Barbara greeted, when they were at the table. Heaven looked everywhere except the dark-haired man. She feared if she looked at him again she might not be able to come up with a complete sentence.

"Barbara, baby!" greeted a blonde man.

"Hey Billy. Come on, let's jitterbug!" Barbara took the blonde known as Billy by the hand and led him to the dance floor, leaving Heaven. Where was Sandra and Martha?

"Heaven, take a seat," Evelyn offered, and Heaven obeyed, plopping down in the open seat beside Evelyn at the round table.

"I want you to meet Rafe and Danny," she said, gesturing to each of them. Heaven reached out and shook Rafe's hand, saying a polite 'pleased to meet you', and then realized next was to shake Danny's hand, the man Evelyn had asked her to talk too but upon arrival she found it indescribably difficult to look him in the eye without blushing like mad.

She reached out and met Danny's extended hand, which was warm and enveloped hers, his palm a little rough. She brought her eyes up to his, because it was polite, and felt her cheeks flush. Her whole face felt hot.

She noticed the small smile, no teeth, he was giving her, a fake smile. He really didn't look too pleased to be there, like Evelyn had said.

"Nice to meet you," she said softly.

"Nice too meet you too," he said back, still an almost hidden sadness to his tone. Her heart broke for him. Heaven glanced at Evelyn, who was looking at her a little funny. Evelyn knew Heaven was shy, but she'd never seen her so bashful. Evelyn figured that it would wear off, as Heaven's shyness usually did. If she was not mistaken though, she'd guess the young nurse fancied Danny.

For the next few minutes, they talked, Mostly Evelyn and Rafe, with a little input from Heaven, and then Danny watching silently.

Heaven's nerves went haywire, when Rafe stood, taking Evelyn with him, excusing themselves so that they could go dance.

"I'll see you in a bit Heaven. And oh, no drinking, you're still too young," she said, like a mother, before following her man onto the dance floor.

It was now just the two of them, at that little table. There was an awkward pause. If Heaven was to speak up and talk to this man, she was going to need a little help.

She reached forward and slid someones drink her way. A little liquid courage. She lifted the glass to her lips and took a long sip.

"Didn't Evelyn just tell you you're too young?"

Heaven looked at him, seeing the little smirk on his kissable lips.

"I'm a nurse. I know what I'm doing," she assured him with a playful smile. The comment broadened his smirk, showing off white teeth, a little gap between his front two teeth that made him all the more attractive to her.

"In that case," he lifted his own bottle, reaching over and clinking it against hers, "Cheers."


	5. Chapter 5

**I kind of noticed that I rushed the last chapter, and so it didnt really make all that much sense. Hopefully I can clear things up in this chapter. Thanks for reading! **

**P.S: You know, I hate to be a nag, but a couple of reviews wouldn't hurt anyone ;) I'd love a little feedback, negative and positive. Thanks to all those who reviewed and put this story on alert!**

**

* * *

**Danny had sipped at his drink, watching the dancers, a thoughtful look on his face. His eyes followed one pair in particular however. He couldn't help feel a bit of envy towards Rafe as he spun Evelyn around, who had a wide red-lipped smile on her face, looking better than he'd een her in a long time.

He glanced at Heaven, noticing the way she awkwardly shifted in her chair and kept glancing at the dance floor with a longing in her eyes. They'd small talked a little, and Danny felt kind of bad for the short answers he was giving her, but he wasn't really in the mood to be around people at wondered if she was expecting him to ask her to dance. He didn't see why him though, because there were a handful of other guys in there that'd say yes to dancing with her in a heartbeat. He saw one of the guys he recognized from training eyeing her, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Danny'd been hoping that everyone would have just gotten the message that he wanted to be left alone, but apparently Heaven wasn't quite seeing that. Or maybe that was why she was awkwardly shifting like that, maybe she thought it'd be rude to just toss a 'see you later' and go off to jitterbug the night away.

He heard her puff a sigh, and then slap her hands down on the table in a way that seemed like she was saying she'd had enough. He looked back at the girl, who he realized was looking at him expectantly instead of leaving like he'd hoped she might. Her palms were on the table, an empty glass between them. When they made eye contact, she raised her brows and offered a smile.

"Wanna dance?" she asked, a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

Danny felt like a jerk to say no, especially when she seemed to be such a sweet girl. He looked apologetic and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Dancing... isn't really my thing," he told her like he'd told so many other girls, rubbing the back of his neck and once again glancing at the dance floor full of happy couples. Heaven was determined to get his sulking behind out there however.

"Oh come on, everyone likes to dance!" she smiled broadly at him, and then gave him a pleading look, "Just one dance. This song really swings, and you can't just sit here and drink the night way."

Danny's defenses picked up at this.

"What make's you think I'm sulking?" he asked looking at her. However, he was unable to stop the corner of his mouth from quirking up at the confident look on the face of the girl who had been so bashful a few moments ago.

"You keep looking at Evelyn," she stated, nodding towards Evelyn and Rafe, who were absorbed in each other. She inhaled, debating whether or not to be frank with this hurting man or not. She decided she should just be honest, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you need to get on with your life."

What she said irked Danny. Since when did all the nurse's know his peronal life? He searched for words, mouth agape, to come up with some sort of retort. Heaven was up from her seat and she held a hand out for him to take, looking insistent. Danny closed his mouth and looked up at her, which was not very far at all, in confusion. She nodded towards the dance floor, bouncing a bit, hardly able to contain her energy.

"I'm not much a dancer either, so if you're worried about looking silly, don't be. Other than that, there's really no excuse," she shrugged, smiling again at him in that inviting way, a deep dimple in each cheeks.

Danny looked at this little determined nurse, and gave her a somewhat exasperated look and placed a hand in hers, to which she gave a small laugh and tugged him to the dance floor. When she turned, placing his hands in the proper places, even though he knew where to put his hands, he felt a little uncomfortable. One reason Danny never really liked to dance was because he _couldn't_ dance. At least without stepping on the girls feet. He felt more insecure then he had in a while there.

"Relax, Danny," Heaven cooed, capturing his attention. Danny looked down at her to see that amused expression on her face. He felt his ears grow hot with his embarrassment.

He noticed now that Heaven was indeed a very pretty girl. She came only up to his chin and looked up with him with bright eyes that caught the light. She had a petite, heart shaped mouth, and when she smiled up at him, it was a sharp, nice smile. She blushed when he looked at her, showing that she was feeling just as shy as him, even though she was trying to uphold the 'girl who takes charge' bravado.

She started showing him a couple moves, and Danny tried to keep up with her. He realized that when she said she wasn't much of a dancer, she was being modest. She laughed, and Danny looked at her in exasperation, wondering what he did wrong.

"You're doing fine, Danny. Just loosen up and you'll feel it. Anyone can swing, especially to Benny Goodman," she told him, having to talk a little louder over the whoops and hollers and laughter. Danny decided to hell with it, he might as well just let the music do its work through him, like she was telling him. He pulled her into one of the moves she'd shown him, where you pull the others arm over you're shoulder and they do the same and slide away from each other in a way that made him feel smooth. He looked apprehensive again after he'd executed it, but Heaven had seemed to thou roughly enjoy it.

"Good! See? It's fun!" She said, and then she started to dance with more energy, bouncing and swinging with him. He spun her and she broke off from him, doing a little number of her own, feeling the music. Danny stood there a moment, watching her with a dumbfounded smile. She nodded at him as if to say 'your turn!' and at first he shook him head. She gave him a pleading look._ Oh what the hell_, he figured and then tried to do the same, not really caring if he looked like an idiot. He tried to figure out whether it was he was because he was taking a day off from his insecurities or whether it was because he had a few drinks in him. He heard Rafe holler his name, cheering him on.

"Yeah, Danny! You're feelin' it!" Heaven clapped her hands and he reached out for them and brought her back, bringing an end to his moment in the spotlight. He smiled at Heaven and matched his smile with a grin of her own.

"You're a real hep-cat when you let loose," she told him with a look of approval. Danny felt his ears grow hot again at the compliment. Did he really just dance, let alone dance like an idiot in front of everyone? _Yeah you'll never hear the end of this_, he thought with an inward sigh. He was going to get alot of teasing from the guys. They were winding down in the dance now, content on just bouncing and swaying softly. Heaven gazed up at Danny. At first, she thought, since he was a head taller than her, it might be awkward when they danced. She was feeling something far from awkward.

"You lied," he said suddenly, catching her by surprise. Heaven quirked a brow at him, encouraging him to explain.

"You said you weren't much of a dancer," He told her, "That was a lie." The confusion on her face cleared up and was replaced by abashed smile, and then, a confident one.

"Well, if you knew what a great dancer I was, you wouldn't have come with me," she said, a playful arrogance about her. Danny had to laugh. She was too much.

"Oh, don't get cocky on me now. You weren't _all _that great," he added. Heaven looked appropriately offended, mouth agape.

"Well you're one to talk, you-" she let out a yelp when Danny decided to cut her off her with an unexpected, maybe somewhat clumsy spin. Heaven was delighted anyways.

From across the floor, Evelyn looked on with a smile. Rafe followed her gaze and chuckled softly, pulling her close as they gently swayed.

"And to think he doesn't like to dance," Rafe said, a look of amusement on his face, "I wonder how Heaven dragged his butt out there."

Evelyn just shrugged and continued to sway in Rafe's arms. She'd picked Heaven mostly because the girl could easily get what she wanted if she set her mind to it. She could be pretty persuasive. Especially with men, even though she failed to realize it.

The song ended and people applauded the band. Heaven felt the urge to stay and dance some more, but she could tell that was all she would get out of Danny, and she wasn't quite ready to leave his company. She thanked him for the dance and he grinned, and Heaven felt a fluttering in her stomach at that smile with the charming little gap in the front. Heaven noticed however, that Danny's features suddenly flooded with a somewhat jealous expression, his jaw set and the corners of his mouth turned down slightly. Heaven followed his gaze and caught sight of Rafe and Evelyn,sharing a tender kiss they probably thought was discrete.

Heaven looked back to Danny and was surprised to find he wasn't standing there in front of her anymore, but moving through the crowd, heading towards the exit. Heaven followed after him. She figured people probably cleared the way for tall people, because he was escaping fast and she was stuck behind ecstatic dancers. Sometimes being short could be such a pain.

Heaven made it outside, to where she thought Danny was. Where could he have gone off to? She looked around for him, and spotted him sitting in his car. He wasn't making a move to go anywhere, he was jut sitting there, perhaps waiting, a thoughtful look on his face. His brows were drawn down, a crease between them, and he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up in a way that made Heaven nearly swoon. She wanted to slap herself for being such a love sick puppy. She made her way over to the passenger side and appraised him a moment. Her heart ached for him, he looked so conflicted, draped over the seat like he'd just given up and collapsed there.

"You love her still. More than you'd hoped," Heaven said softly. It was statement, not a question. Danny jumped slightly at her voice, not realizing she'd been standing there. Heaven smiled apologetically. Danny regained his composure, sitting up straight rather than the crumpled, vulnerable position he'd been in moments ago. He opened is mouth, shut it, and then gave a small nod. They didn't say anything for a long pause.

"Can I sit in here with you?" she asked, and Danny gave a soft sigh before leaning over and pushing the door open for her. All he really wanted was to be alone, but Heaven was making that impossible. She slid in and shut the car door behind her. She didn't say anything, just slid her shoes off slowly and brought a knee up to rest her chin on, and he tried to ignore the bit of leg she showed in doing so. She looked nearly as vulnerable as he had moments ago, which made him for some reason, relax. He released his grip on the steering wheel.

"You ever been in love, Heaven?" he asked hesitantly. He shifted, facing her a bit. Heaven bit her lips and shrugged.

"Yeah I guess. I would call it love," she answered honestly, turning her head and resting her cheek on her knee now, so she could watch nodded slowly, debating on whether or not to ask.

"What happened?" Danny asked curiously. She didn't seem at all shy of the idea.

"I dunno. It all ended the same. I was enamored with them, but it turns out they weren't as taken with me," she admitted, with a sad little smile. _They_? Danny thought. He thought love was a rare thing.

"Sorry," he said, unsure of what to say.

"Don't be." Heaven didn't look bothered by it all that much. Danny had to wonder if she really knew what love felt like.

"Are you sure you really loved them?" he asked. Heaven smiled. She was expecting that.

"I loved them. For a while anyways," she told him, "I was so broken when they were gone, but I got over it. I healed up. I sure danced alot to get better that's for sure," She gave a little laugh at that, "I got over them, even though they each took a little piece of me with them when they left."

Danny leaned back and pondered this. She could practically see the gears turning in his head. He didn't ask any more after that.

For a while, the two of them just sat in the car, enjoying the others company even if neither said anything. Danny realized it did feel nice to have someone there with him. Just being there. Eventually, the others came tumbling out of the club, trying to hold onto one another for support due to all the drinks they'd probably had. Rafe and Evelyn were the last out, looking sober, their arms around each other. Heaven had expected Evelyn to be sober anyways, with the baby and all.

Heaven looked to Danny, and then Danny met her gaze. She blushed and smiled shyly. Danny wondered why she always did that when they made eye contact.

"Thank for letting me stay with you in here," she said, slipping her shoes on again. Danny nodded. When she opened the door and started to slide out, Danny suddenly reached forward and grabbed hold of her hand. Heaven felt her cheeks flush at the gesture, and looked at Danny with a questioning look.

"Thank you," he said, with such conviction in his eyes, and so sincerely it made her heart nearly beat out of her chest. She made the quick descision to lean over and gave him a friendly peck on the cheek in farewell and went off to rejoin her friends for the ride home. Her lips felt so warm from touching his cheek. She walked back to where the girls were piling into the car. She squeezed in the front, acting like a sober barrier to keep Barbara from messing with Evelyn while Evelyn drove.

"Heaven! Baby!" Barbara laughed loudly, obviously drunk, as she wrapped the younger nurse in a tight hug, "How ya been?"

"Pretty swell," she breathed, squirming in a feeble attempt to escape the tight embrace.

"You've been more than swell huh?" Martha piped in, leaning forward from the back, "I saw you dancin' with Danny, blushin' and gigglin'."

"Yeah, which is funny considering Danny's not much of a dancer," Sandra piped in, to which the girls laughed. Except for Heaven of course.

"I was not 'blushin' and gigglin'," Heaven defended. She mentally cursed herself when she felt her face grow hot, probably proving their point with acherry red cheeks, "I was just trying to show him a good time.. And he is too a wonderful dancer."

"Look at you, getting all defensive over your man," Barbara cackled, and pinched Heaven's cheek. She swiped her hand away angrily.

"He's not my man."

"But you wish he was!" Martha added with a drunken giggle, which flustered Heaven further more.

"Give her a break girls, I told Heaven to dance with Danny tonight," Evelyn intervened, sounding like a mother already.

All of the girls were quiet for a moment, and Heaven thought maybe they'd just let it drop now.

"And she lo-o-oved it." She'd been wrong. They couldn't help picking on Heaven. They found her reactions all too funny.

"Just admit it, you're head over heels."

"Did you see the way he danced tonight? I dunno what you did Heaven, honey, but you got a good reaction out of him."

"It wasn't so bad either!"

"Heaven loves Danny! Heaven loves Danny! Heaven loves Danny!" Barbara started to chant.

Heaven tried to argue with most of them, but failed miserably. She groaned and looked to Evelyn, who glanced at her apologetically.

It was a long, uncomfortable ride home for Heaven.

And the worst part, was she knew that they could be right. She had to admit she was drawn to Danny Walker even when he was supposedly being a mope. When he'd loosened up, she hadn't wanted to be with anyone else but him. And there was something so sensitive and gentle about him... Heaven hoped that it was only a physical thing that would soon pass. She knew that somewhere along the line, she could get hurt loving a broken man like Danny, who on top of it all, was putting his life on the line in World War II.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you for all the wonderful reviews and author alerts! Don't be afraid to critisize a little. It'll only help this story improve :)**

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Danny had to admit, being forced to go out for a night on the town hadn't been as bad as he had imagined.

He'd danced, and actually _enjoyed_it, which most definitely said something. It was such a liberating feeling, to let loose on the dance floor, rather than to sway stiffly like he'd done on the few occasions he'd been forced to dance before. He could see why Heaven told him she used to dance when she was feeling down. He was glad she'd dragged his sorry behind with her, although he'd probably never admit it. Even when he saw Evelyn and Rafe together, and it still felt like someone had taken his heart and stepped on it, grinding it into the floorboards, a little piece of him said it was alright, that this was how it was and he was just going to have accept that. The whole world wouldn't come crashing down on him. Instead of sinking into a seat at the bar and drowning his sorrows like he so wanted too, he simply walked away. He wove through the bodies that radiated heat, watching for wayward arms and legs, and went outside, cool air meeting his face and making him calm. He'd ended up in the car, where he started thinking, like he so often did.

Rafe had always told Danny he thought to much. Danny would usually just say that he had to think enough for two, since Rafe hardly thought things over at all. When he sat down in the car, he felt himself fall apart again, despite the keep your chin up attitude he'd had in the club. He didn't really care anymore, he realized. At least, he didn't want to care anymore. He wished he didn't care that Evelyn hadn't chosen him. She'd offered to stay with him, but he knew that it would be wrong to take advantage of her like that. Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn...

It wasn't until Heaven startled him, seemingly appearing out of thin air, that Evelyn slipped from his mind. He'd been content on having her there, even though he hadn't been all for the girl when she started pushing him to his limits that night. He noticed, that the things Heaven had told him had been right. He wanted to just trust her, let her into his life. But he wasn't ready for something like that yet. He was still wary of women. Especially nurses, who were greatly outnumbered by men in Pearl Harbor, and were likely to change their minds.

After theyleft, as he'd suspected, Danny had gotten teased about dancing. He didn't mind so much though. He'd even brushed it off playfully and said they were all just ealous of his moves. Rafe looked delighted that Danny was opening up again.

It'd been a few days since their night out, and Danny was on his way to physical therapy. He hated returning to the hospital each day. He had really grown to dislike the hospital over the past month. He felt like he'd rather jut die next time instead of being brought back to the too white, too clean building, confined to a bed with its thin sheets and cold metal frame. The hospital had been all fixed up since the fateful day that was December 7th, looking like it had when he'd first seen it. The physical therapy room wasn't so bad however. It had lots of light, pouring in through sea-foam green shudders. There was a couple potted flowers in there as well, perhaps to provide some kind of cheerful atmosphere as if to say 'you're almost out of here!'.

Today, when he walked into the specific room for physical therapy, he was surprised to see not the withering, hot-tempered Nurse Tate, but Heaven herself, teaching a red haired man how to properly stretch his hamstring, pushing him further to where he didn't look all to comfortable, but insisting it would help.

Danny noticed she looked a little different than the last time he'd seen her at the club. Every hair wasn'tin place, which he imagined must have been difficult to achieve considering the amount of hair she had. Instead, the curls were wild, falling down her back, aribbon securing it in a loose ponytail. Her lips were pink rather than the fire-engine red they'd been painted before. When she looked up, noticing him there, there was no powder, but he could see now that her face was tanner, and she had freckles across her nose and a little on her cheeks, which still had a flush to them. All in all, she looked different. Danny figured it was a good different. It was natural.

"Danny," she breathed, surprised too see him as well. The red-head glanced over his shoulder with a slightly pained expression on his face, and took the opportunity to get out of the stretch he was in while Heaven was distracted.

"Hello, Heaven," Danny nodded in greeting, slipping his hands into his pockets and looking around. He felt suddenly awkward around her again. He wished the comfort from the night at the club would just come back naturally, "What happened to Nurse Tate?" Heaven smiled, that familiar, sharp smile, and shrugged.

"I think she has the stomach flu or something. I'm covering for her," she told him, walking over to the desk in the back of the room and searching through some papers. Danny approached her, hands still shoved in his pockets like an insecure school boy. Heaven looked up a little from the papers, "Would you prefer Nurse Tate?"

"No ma'am. I was curious is all," he replied, and she laughed softly. His relief must have shown on his face. He preferred Heaven over the old nurse anyday. He stepped a little closer, trying to peek at the papers she was looking at, and she pulled them to hide the words from sight, glancing over the top with a look of mischief.

"So, I guess I should formally call you...?" he waited for her to fill him in on her last name, subconsciously rocking back and forth a bit on his heels.

"Lieutenant Fitzgerald, and what do I call you now?" she said, placing the papers back in a stack after she'd skimmed over them. He wasn't entirely sure if she had to skim as many as she did. He was sure that he had seen her hand shaking a bit as well. Danny was starting to notice that he had some sort of power over Heaven, one that made her nervous. He figured knowing this should give him more confidence, but the nerves seemed to be a mutual feeling

"You can call me Lieutenant Walker, ma'am," he told her, to which she could stop herself from inwardly sighing _Heaven Walker_Fitzgerald? That's aninteresting name," Danny said, a look of mirth in his eyes. Heaven shook her head, a look of exasperation flooding her features.

"I know, it's a funny name isn't it? Everyone feels like they should make a nickname out of it," she explained, moving around the desk and to the middle of the room. She turned and beckoned him over, suddenly adopting a look of warning, "You better not try make any dumb nicknames out of it or I'll whoop your behind." Danny chuckled and met her in the middle of the room. He'd never had a nurse tell him they were going to 'whoop his behind'.

"Yes ma'am," Danny replied, giving a mock salute while he was at it. Heaven quirked a brow at him, briefly dismissing the other man, who gave Danny a good luck thumbs up before waltzing out, and then turning back to him.

"Are you Mocking me, Lieutenant Walker?" she asked,flashing him a impish smile and then demonstrating to him how to stretch his arm.

"Perhaps Lieutenant Fritz," he replied witha shrug before stretching his arm the way she was showing him. He had to admit, it was a rather pathetic name he'd come up with up on the spot, but it got a reaction out of her anyways. Heaven narrowed her eyes at him.

"A little further," she said, irritation clear on her face, a look that gave Danny a strange feeling accomplishment. He completely forgot however, when she pushed his arm, further, to the point where it hurt. Danny grunted at the small amount, yet unexpected pain he felt in his forearm. She smiled saucily at him, and then ceased to press him further.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he chirped, and then started rattling off about the condition of his body and new exercises to do, as if nothing had happened. Danny realized the hidden wickedness she could have, despite her obvious sweetness. She was talking fast, and he realized he'd missed the first half of what she'd told him. She talked all the way to the cabinet, where she grabbed some small weights, and then all the way back to him, where she set the weights down on the floor. She stood there, silent and expectant now. When he didn't not pick up the weights like she'd informed him too somewhere along her informative speech, she looked up, and then laughed at the clueless expression on Danny's face.

"Did you catch any of that?" she asked, too which he shook his head and said in that charming southern drawl, ''No ma'am." Heaven just smiled and then went over it again, leaving out the nit picky details that weren't really necessary, and showed him what to do. He listened, never complaining as most men often did when she wanted them to do something that wasn't all too comfortable or perhaps felt like a blow to their masculinity. He was a good listener, even though he hadn't always chose to do as he was told all his life. Heaven started to talk to Danny about normal things, asking him where he was from, what he used to do there. Danny didn't mind her many questions either. It felt good for him to reminisce, tell her about the good old days where it was just him and Rafe, the two little terrors of their small town, wreaking havoc like brash boys did. While he told Heaven these stories however, especially the one about where he made Rafe fake wings to help him fly, even though he'd known it was a bad idea in the first place, Danny couldn't help feel the deja vu of it all, and an aching in his chest. It was all too ironic as well the name Heaven sounded very close to the name Evelyn.

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The next week continued the same way. Nurse Tate was still out with a nasty case of the stomach flu, and Heaven still covered for her, even though it was a bit out of the way for her schedule. She was working more than she should, and politely refused when other nurses offered to cover for her. As long as she saw Danny there each day, she didn't mind one bit. She'd never loved work so much. The other nurses in her house had started to notice, especially when she started wearing lip stick to work, when she usually saved it for nights out, and she liked to make sure her hair was in place as it could get as well. The nurses pestered her, asking about this mystery man Heaven always got dolled up for, but she would always blush and try and convince them there was no man, did it hurt to want to get dressed up once in a while? They still asked though, and so she decided she'd just make someone up. Her cover man was called David Williams and he was from New York. It was the most common of names, but it was the first thing to pop into her head. It wasn't until later that she realized that David Williams was the initials D.W, just like Danny Walker. She was more obsessed than she'd realized.

Evelyn knew that there was no David Williams, but she let Heaven have her way. She knew that Danny went to the hospital daily to his phyiscaltherapy, and thatHeaven was now coincidentally working the class, but she understood why she lied. The other nurses could really be insistent on details, and if they knew who the man was it would only be worse.

Sometimes, Danny and Heaven talked about little, nothing topics. Sometimes, the would mess with each other the majority of the class, and sometimes they would argue over stupid things. For brief moments, Heaven would reveal bits of her life, and then she would make him promise not to tell anyone. He found out that Heaven wanted to be an artist. It was uncommon for most woman to be the kind of artist heaven aspired to be. But she was a dreamer, and she told him how one day she'd have her work hung in galleries, and maybe when she was long gone, in museums. It was a lot more than he' ever dreamed off. Come to think of it, he didn't know what he was going to do with his life after the war. He always figured he was going to be the dirt-poor farmer his daddy was.

"Have you ever shown them to anyone?" Danny asked, referring to her paintings. She shook her head at this and laughed as if it was a silly idea.

"Oh no. They'd think I'm crazy when they see my stuff. They wouldn't be used to my stuff, let alone the idea of a woman wanting to be a professional..." she trailed off and brushed the idea aside with a sheepish look on her face.

"Heaven, I'm shocked to have to tell you this, but you have to loosen up. Do something crazy," he told her, finding it funny how they were switching positions. It was like the night she'd gotten him to dance, only he was the one trying to do the persuading.

"I've done crazy things before," she defended, sliding off from where she was perched on the nurse's desk. Danny looked at her with disbelief. From what she'd told him, Heaven seemed to be a little afraid of taking her chances.

"Like what?" She searched her mind for some sort of trouble she'd caused in her life.

"I've gone ding-dong ditching," she offered, to which Danny laughed. Her cheeks flushed at that, and Danny had to laugh more. Heaven huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Please. That's grade school stuff there," Danny said, once he'd got over laughing, "I have to show you how to live."

And that was how Heaven somehow ended up on a hospital cot with wheels, clutching the metal frame while Danny pushed her faster than she figured the cots were supposed to go. It reminded her off being in the grocery store, wathcing kids push carts faster than they were supposed to, standing on the cart with a gleeful expression on there face as the manager chased them.

"We're gonna crash!" Danny said in Heaven's ear with a laugh, and she looked on wide-eyed as the wall approached too quickly. She couldn't believe she'd let Danny do this to her. If she wasn't so weak in the knees for those gorgeous dark eyes of his..

"Danny!" she said, panic clear in her voice. She clutched his shirt from where he stood behind her, a broad grin gracing his features despite Heaven having a cow in front of him. She squeezed her eyes shut and then suddenly jerked forward. They hadn't crashed, but Danny had stopped them in the nick of time. She turned and punched him in the shoulder, the good one, and he just grinned at her like that brash boy he was. It flustered her beyond belief.

"Danny, are you nuts! I did not agree to this," she hissed, struggling to get off the hospital cot. The heels wobbled, "We could get in big trouble for this."

"Relax," he told her, tugging a curl affectionately. She swatted his hand away, "No one saw. We're not gonna get in trouble." He glanced over his shoulder briefly, and then his cool exterior faded. He let out a sharp curse, glancing back to Heaven with an frantic, almost ecstatic look on his face. Before she could ask him what he say he started to push again, catching her off guard as she wobbled on the cart from the sudden movement.

"Sit down," he told her, pushing her back down onto the cot just as Heaven heard someone, maybe a doctor, shout out at them, ordering them to stop. He must have seen them whiz by. He turned the cart two the left, down another hall, looming over her and keeping her out of sight. Heaven pressed into his chest, hoping not to be seen. Even if she was in potential of getting fired at the moment, she couldn't help but notice the firmness of his chest. You're such a girl, she thought, and was startled by another shout to stop from the doctor. She could hear Danny's loud footsteps, the squeaking of the cot as it was pushed beyond its limits.

"Left!" Heaven told him, and Danny sharply turned, tipping the cot to the side a bit that made Heavn grip the handle bars so hard her knuckles turned white. Heaven reluctantly withdrew a hand pointed to an exit to the building and Danny tugged Heaven out of the cot. She was tripping on her own feet as they ran for the door, but once the were out they ran tried to find some sort of cover. Heaven felt herself being pulled down, and she stumbled back, landing on Danny's chest. Dannyfeltthewind leave him from the force of girl, however small she was. Heaven tried to control her heavy breathing, trying to keep quiet and still, as did Danny. Heaven blushed when she felt his ragged breath on the side of her face, tickling her cheek.

"Is he gone?" Danny asked, and Heaven dared to peek over the bushes in time to see the doctor shaking his head and walking back into the hospital, shutting the door with a loud slam behind him. Yeah she said, and then Danny let out a sigh of relief and sat up, brushing the dirt from his shirt. She could still feel the adrenaline pumping.

"That was a close call," he mused with a wide smile, his eyes shaped like little crescent moons. He brushed his hair back from his forehead and was caught off guard when Heaven thumped him in the chest. He looked at her, a bewildered look on his face. Heaven made herself stay angry with him, trying not to be charmed by the adorable look on his face.

"I could have lost my job! All because you wanted to do something stupid and crazy, because apparently, that's 'how you live life'," she hissed, trying to mock his deep voice at the end, puffing her chest out in an attempt to look like a cocky male. It was actually a very amusing sight, and Danny couldn't help fallback to the grass and laugh, especially when he knew she was being seriouswith him. Heaven made a low noise that almost sounded like a feral cat growling and took him by the shirt, tugging him up from the ground.

"Not funny!" she told him in a hushed yell, "I hope you don't mind, but I want keep my job! Not blow it all on some crazy stunt you thought would be fun. I can't docrazy stuff liek that..."

"That's alright, because you already are kind of crazy," Danny said, which was a big mistake. If there was something a man should never tell a woman, it was that she was crazy. Heaven got up in his face for that, face flushing red out of anger rather than embarrassment.

"Oh, I'm crazy? I'm crazy!"she laughed dryly, releasing his shirt to throw her arms in the air, as if asking the lord above for the patience not to wring this man's neck, "If anyone's crazy, you are!"

"Now hold on Heaven, I didn't mean to upset you-"

"I'm not crazy!"

"I know, I know," Danny tried to calm her, placing a hand on each shoulder to try and calm her. He shushed her and Heaven seemed to relax a bit. And then, she fell apart again.

"Oh Danny, I'm so sorry," she said suddenly, her forehead falling against Danny's shoulder. He furrowed his brows at the sudden change of mood. She sighed softly. Danny gently pulled her head back and smiled in reassurance. She looked at him sadly. Danny felt his chest tighten at the hopelessness on her face.

"It's alright. Now, what's wrong, Heaven?" Heaven shook her head and sighed, looking up to the sky.

"I am crazy. This whole thing is making me crazy!" she admitted. Danny looked at her in confusion.

"What whole thing, Heaven? Tell me," he encouraged, stroking her cheek softly with his thumb. She leaned into his hand and chewed her lip thoughtfully, watching him with a tentative expression before she let out a sigh after a long pause where she just looked at him.

"Okay, so, I'm friends with Evelyn, and Evelyn is friends with you, but you love her, and she's pregnant with you're baby, but she loves Rafe who loves her back, who is friends with you, and then I-" she stopped briefly, and Danny held his breath "-I work so much now, and I barely sleep because I'm pretty sure our house is haunted, and when I'm not up because of the stupid sounds, I'm up thinking...thinking so much about how messed up this whole thing is, and I think about you. Because you make me crazy."

Danny tried to sort out what she'd just told him, tried to separate the words she'd rattled off so quickly, ad then wonder if he was hearing correctly.

"So, are you saying.." he trailed off, looking at her in confusion. She let out another, exasperated sigh and nodded.

"I'm saying that I really like you Danny. And I know all you need now is a friend, but that gets harder the more time I spend withyou, and the more times you do little things like brush a hair out of my eyes or even just smile at me with that mouth of yours," she told him. Danny slowly withdrew the hand he had on her shoulder, which had been slowly massaging in an attempt to sooth her so the words came out right, "And you know what's so pathetic? I work so much because the only time I see you is the physical therapy session you have. I don't want to trade shifts, because I want to see you, but because of this I'm working double the amount of time I usually do."

She pulled the end of her ponytail in frustration, before adding. "And the even crazier part is, its all worth it." Heaven felt a weight lift from er shoulders now that she spilled her guts to him.

She felt more and more unsure however, when Danny just looked at her, a pained expression on his face. Did it really hurt him so much for her to love him? Why couldn't he just forget Evelyn, and love her.

"Heaven, I...I just... I'm not ready for another girl in my life. Not yet anyways... " he said slowly, rubbing his temple with his knuckle, having a hard time making eye contact with her. When he did, he noticed the glassiness of her eyes. Was she crying?

"Not yet. I don't think not ever. Because you love Evelyn. And I don't think you can get over her." Danny saw a single tear hanging in in the corner of her eyes, and then slip down her cheek when she blinked. He felt the urge to wipe the wetness it had left behind, but he knew that if he did, she would just swat his hand away.

"That's..." he wanted to say it wasn't true, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead, he sighed. "Let me take you home." Heaven shook her head and stood up curtly.

"No. I've got it. I don't need anything from you," she ground out, refusing to meet his eyes. She turned and walked quickly away from him, trying to pull her chin up and keep some sort of shred of her dignity.

She heard him call her name, but she ignored him, keeping her back to him. All she wanted to do is fall on the ground and let the tears fall, and then sleep for days to make up for all the sleep she'd lost over thinking about Danny. She kept going though, and he didn't follow. When she knew she was out of sight, she started to run. She ran all the way to their house, past the girls, ignoring their questions, and straight up the stairs to her room. She closed the door and kicked her shoes off, falling onto her bed and letting the tears stain her pillow case, making sure she was quiet as a mouse as she did so. She heard Evelyn knock on the door, asking if she could come in, but she ignored it and Evelyn had the sense to leave er alone. Seeing Evelyn at the moment was almost as worse as seeing Danny.

Heaven thought very little, only about how dumb she could be, always trailing after love, and always getting her heart broke in the end. This time though, it hurt worse than the others, even though the others had been longer than Danny, and had actually been her boyfriend in thefirst place. Danny never even gave her a chance.

It wasn't long until Heaven fell asleep, still in her nurse uniform and all.


	7. Chapter 7

A big fat thank you to all those who reviewed and put this story on alert! It's good motivation for me to keep going when I see that people are reading. Sorry this one took longer, there wa alot of technical difficulties that made me want to just pull my hair out. Anyways, read on, and enjoy~

Questions, comments, concerns - Feel free to leave a review :)

* * *

Heaven considered herself lucky to have a room to herself in their house. There were two beds per room, and an odd number of girls, and Heaven had been the odd one out. Before, she had hated sleeping alone. It was too quiet, the heavy breathing of another sleeping body absent. And when there was too much quiet, there was room for other, ominous noises such as a creak or a peculiar animal noise that sounded much too close for her to be comfortable. Back home, Heaven had her own room, but often times her younger sisters would crawl in with her when they were afraid, and although she'd always acted annoyed by it and called them "scaredy cats", she secretly enjoyed the warm bodies on both of her sides, and their gentle snores. And for those nights her sisters did not crawl in with her, she had the family dog hop up into her bed, even though her mother would say that she was ruining her sheets with a dirty dog in her bed.

Heaven enjoyed having a room to herself now however, because that meant she could lock herself in there and not be interupted by another girl who needed to get in for her things. This way, she could have some privacy from the prying nurses.

When she fell asleep after talking to Danny that one day, she slept well into the next day, not waking up until it was past noon. At first, she'd glanced of the clock, thought nothing of it, and them stretched out like a lazy cat. She'd forgotten how good it felt to sleep through the night, to have that feeling of being well rested. All good feeling were dashed however, when she realized she had to be at work a couple of hours ago. She shot out of bed, conveniently already dressed since she'd fallen asleep in her uniform, and came flying down the stairs, where she collided with Barbara.

"Jeez Heaven, you see a ghost or something?" Barbara asked once she'd maintained her balanced.

"I gotta go to work!" Heaven told her urgently, and the tried to leave but found she was held in place by Barbara, who had a hold on the back of her uniform.

"Hold your horses, you don't have work today. Martha covered for you," she informed Heaven. Heaven's shoulders fell and she released a sigh of relief, her back hitting the wall with a light thump when she leaned against it. She watched Barbara assess her with disapproval clear on her face, lips pursed and all. "Like I would have let you go to work like that anyways. You look like you just rolled out of bed."

"That's because I did," Heaven told her with a shrug of her shoulders, smiling whimsically and then pushing herself off the wall, starting up the stairs again. Her thoughts instantly flooded with guilt on what she said to Danny. She saw the confusion the whole time she yelled at him but it never quite registered that she was snapping at him unfairly. She could hear Barbara's footsteps following her as she tried to come up with a method of apology for Danny.

"What's got you so worked up anyways, Heaven? You came storming through the kitchen yesterday like a bat out of hell," Barbara said. Heaven wasn't quick enough in thinking up an excuse, "It's because of Danny isn't it?" Heaven stopped climbing the stairs. She suddenly whipped around and looked at Barbara, mouth open, ready to protest, but Barbara cut her off.

"Don't go thinking just because I'm blond and pretty I haven't got any brains between my ears, toots. I happen to know Danny has that class you were covering. And please, David Williams? You should be a little more creative with your fake names," Barbara told her with a smirk, flipping her hair back in an arrogant fashion. Heaven blushed like a little girl who'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She nodded, chewing her lip. She couldn't lie, she was no good at lyeing and there was really no use now. She shrugged.

"I just thought.." she trailed off and shrugged again. Barbara patted Heaven on the shoulder, brows drawn up with sympathy for the young nurse, in such a way she knew Barbara had to be thinking, _poor kid, she's so naive_. What Barbara said next though, took her by surprise.

"He told you that he's the father, huh? Of Evelyn's kid didn't he?" Barbara guessed, and took the almost comical widening of Heaven's eyes as 'how did you know?'. Heaven felt her chest tighten at the news. For once, she was glad for Barbara's constant gossip. She wondered if Barbara had not ever said anything, would Danny have?

Her desire to apologize to Danny after the way she had behaved yesterday completely vanished. How could Danny, who seemed so kind and understanding of everything, get his own best friend's girl _pregnant_? She thought she knew Danny, even after a short amount of time, but it dawned on her that maybe she wa putting him up on a higher pedestal tan she should have. Her anger towards him rekindled, only this time she had more of a logical reason to be mad at him. She looked at Barabara, jaw clenched. How could he not tell her, even after Heaven spilled most of her secrets to him so willingly. She knew that part of it was her fault as well though. She trusted too easily to never get hurt. Heaven decided to lie.

"Yeah. He did," Heaven managed to grit out, before slipping into her room. Barbara hung in the doorway, rattling off that there were plenty of guys around, that she shouldn't go after a country boy when there were so many 'real men' around. Heaven lay in her bed and heard the chatter, not really absorbing any of it. She felt like the hurt had started over again. Se politely asked Barabara to leave her alone after a while. Barbara obliged and Heaven listened to her footsteps as she walked down the hall.

Heaven punched her pillow, pretending that it was Danny's smooth, strong jaw that before she'd yearned to touch, to plant kisses on. She hated him for loving Evelyn instead of her. She hated him for messing with her feelings when he was going to have a _kid_ with Evelyn. But she hated him the most for these conflicted feelings he was giving her, for this anger he'd sparked inside of her, and the unexplained love she felt for him anyways.

* * *

Danny hadn't seen Heaven at all since her confession. He'd gone to her house afterwards, not really sure of what he was going to say or what posessed him to even walk the short distance there from the hospital. He just ended up there, at the doorstep, wringing his cap, the memory of him doing the same thing when he was going to return Evelyn's hanky haunting him.

He was somewhat releived when Barbara anwered the door. She'd flashed him a pitiful smile and leaned in the doorway in a way that made him feel uninvited when he asked if Heaven was there. He had the feeling that Barbara knew well enough what was going on.

"Sorry, hon, she's not feeling too well," she told him before shutting the door in his face. He stood there looking at the dust on the screen and told himself at least now, even though he felt like a coward to say it, he didn't have to face her. He began the walk home and remebered the way Heaven looked at him with that hopelessness that tore him apart. She'd trusted him so easily, and let him into her mind, offering him what she could give, and he'd just stepped back, refusing what she gave. He told himself that it was better that way, so that maybe he could prevent the both of them from a bigger hurt in the future. He'd convinced himself that love and war were two things that didn't mix well, and he didn't want to start another relationship when he could be sent across the ocean any day. It felt like another person to lose, and another person to let down if he failed to come back. He didn't want her to have to go through that. He'd seen Evelyn's condition when they thought Rafe wasn't coming back, and he'd be damned if he'd put Heaven through something like that.

But really, he knew deep down that he was just being a coward. Maybe it would ease some hurt in the future, but denying the two of them was an oppurtunity that would never come again. Somehow he just felt that if he let her go, there wouldn't be another Heaven.

But he was afriad to let people in. He always had been, and he was now more than ever after the whole Evelyn ordeal.

Danny tried to make himself believe his whole philosophy that it was better that he and Heaven didn't get involved was true. And he did pretty good for a few days, but as time passed, he couldn't silence the little voice in his head that kept telling him he needed to see Heaven again.

He started to resent the therapy class now. Sure the new nurses were nice, but they didn't give him the same comfort where he felt like he could tell them about his life, or that he could argue with them over which resturaunt was the best, or that he could push them around on a cot like they were kids again. It wasn't the same with the smallish nurse who had dragged him onto the dance floor that one night. He decided that he had enough of sitting around and waiting for her to come back. He had to make things right with her, before war got in the way.

He found himself at her house again, and this time with a letter. At first his intention had been to just give the letter and pray that she didn't despise him enough to not read it. He'd written a letter because he knew he might say the wrong thing if he stood there trying to explain things to her, with those shining eyes staring him down. But at the same tie he didn't want her to think him a coward that could not even face her, and so now he was going to use the two methods hand in hand. Give her the letter, watch as she read it, and then he hoped what conversation came after that would be easier because of the letter.

More time than there should have been passed since the last time he saw her, and he was afraid that if he did talk to her and by some remarkable miracle she forgave him, that she would be mad at him ffor not trying to talk to her earlier. He tried to focus on just trying to get her to forgive him._ Babysteps Danny_, he told himself.

Danny walked by the kitchen window, and could hear something sizzling, and the smell of ham met his nose moments later. He smiled when he heard her voice drifting in the air with the good smells, singing _Nobody' Baby._ Heaven wasn't the greatest of singers. She couldn't hit high notes, and sometimes her voice cracked, but she made up for it in its enthusiasm and uniqueness.

"_I'm nobody's baby, I wonder why,_

_Each night and day I pray the lord up above,_

_Please send me down somebody to love, _

_But nobody wants me, I'm blue somehow,_

_Won't someone hear my plea and take a chance with me,_

_Because I'm nobody's baby now_,"

He could picture her, singing over the stove while she made her dinner, bouncing a bit on her toes to the rhythm, curls going up and down with her. He listened to her, trying to muster up the courage to go to the screen door and tap on the wooden frame and finally talk to the girl who'd yanked him off his sorry behind and made him himself again. He closed his eyes and sighed quietly, pinching the bridge of his nose. She was humming now, perhaps because she had forgotten the rest of the words. If he hadn't been so focused on the sound of her voice and trying to get himself to man up, he would have heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Danny?"

Danny's eyes shot open and he saw Martha standing there, holding a bag of groceries, looking at him with a mixture of confusion on suspision. It seemed like all the nurses that lived in this house were peeved at him. Who would have been mad at himself too though, since because of him one nurse was pregnant and the other was hurt.

"Martha," he breathed in surprise. The singing had ceased and he whipped his head around to the window in time to catch a glimpse of Heavens facepressed to the glass. Her eyes widened and she withdrew when the fact that Danny was indeed standing outside there house was confirmed.

"What are you doing here?" Martha asked, trying to open the screen door even thoug her hands were full. Danny offered to help her with the groceries but she just shook her head, the corners of her lips pulled down in displeasure. She was stubborn a couple of moments before she gave in and asked him to get the door.

"What are you doing here?" Martha asked again as he held it open for her, when he failed to answer. She quickly brushed past him into the house

"I need to talk to Heaven," he said with a pleading look, hanging in the doorframe, one foot in but not daring to go any further. Martha shot him a look of disaprroval and shifted the bag to rest on her hip.

"I don't know, Danny, she was pretty mad at you.." she trailed off. _Was?_ Danny thought hopefully. Martha was busy wondering whether she should allow it or not to see the hope she'd instilled in Danny. She liked the young nurse. She reminded her of Betty, and she didn't want to see her get hurt again. Before she could answer though, black smoke started to drift from the kitchen, the stench of something burning in the air. Martha cursed and darted into the kitchen. Danny took his chances and followed her. Martha had ditched the groceries on the counter and was now flailing a dish towel at a flaming cooking pan, which really wasnt doing anything at all. Danny acted by grabbing a vase of flowers from the table. He took the flowers out, dropping them on the table and doused the frying pan, putting out the fire. The two of them stood there a moment, Danny with a empty vase poised over the now dripping stove and Martha clutching the dishrag, bot of them a little unsure of what just happend. Martha traightened first, pushing a curl back from her face and rolling her eyes to the cieling, tossing the rag in the sink in an exasperated motion.

"What is she trying to do, burn the house down?" Martha said to herself, looking mildly flustered. She looked at Danny, acknowleding he was there. She raised a brow at him, hands on hips in that way most women did when not happy, "Did I say you could come in?" The corners of her mouth were turned down in a frown. Danny spluttered, confused as to why he was suddenly the bad guy again when he'd probably just stopped their house from burning down.

"But there-"

"I'm kidding," Martha cut him off. It hadn't seemed like she was kidding to Danny. She looked to the fried ham and then towards the stairs.

"Heaven!" she called, her voice loud and clear, "Get your behind down here missy!" Martha shooed Danny out, nudging him back out the door while he looked at her in confsusion and kept stealing glances at the stairway. He was on the porch in an instant and Martha looked on at him with a pitiful frown.

"I'll talk to her," she told Danny, briefly turning that frown into a small smile despite what just happened, before she stomped back into the house. She shouted Heaven's name again. Danny waited there, shifting back and forth. He pulled the letter out of his coat and flattened it, even though there was not a kink or a wrinkle on the envelope. It was silly, but he didn't want her to think he didn't care enough for her to give her a decent looking letter letter. Heaven over-analyzed things, he had come to find. It was better ae than sorry.

Minutes passed, and he stood in the same spot with the letter in his hands. He took a couple steps back and looked up to the bedroom windows in hopes of seeing Heaven's face peering out back at him. He was startled by the screen to slamming and felt his heart hammer in his ribcage. His anxiety faded however, to mild dissapointment when he only saw Martha. He was scared to see Heaven but also dissapointed to see only Martha. It was a funny thing, what Heaven did to him.

Martha had her arms crossed, and was leaning against the screen, appraising him. She almost laughed at how flustered he was.

"Sorry, Danny. She won't come down," she apologized. Danny just nodded and stepped forward, holding out the letter. Martha took it with a questioning look.

"Could you give that to Heaven please?" he asked. His plan had not gone as he'd hoped, but hopefully she would at least read his letter. Martha nodded and looked at him, waiting to see if he had anything else to say, one hand on the door handle.

"And thank you, Martha," Danny finished, looking a little down as he said it. He turned and hopped off the porch, hands in his pockets.

"Hey, Danny," Martha said, to which Danny turned around and looked at her expectantly. Martha continued, "I think she secretly misses you. I also think she was planning on talking to you, that is until she found out about the baby. Mostly, I think she's just mad you didn't come here earlier." Danny processed this information. Who told her about the baby? He thought of this, and he also thought he should have come earlier. He should have told her earlier. Maybe then she would have come down and actually talked to him. Danny nodded and thanked Martha for the trouble before shoving his hands into his pockets and leaving.

"Better luck next time," Martha called bwefore heading inside. Danny wondered if she meant for him to come back and try again. He didn't know if he should, since Heaven seemed pretty set on not speaking with him. Or maybe she meant next time he met a girl, to not screw it all up. He doubted that he'd meet another girl like Heaven though. He gave one last look to the house to see Heaven in the window. He knew she was watching her. They looked at eachother, tesnion in the air despite the distance, and then she dissapeared from the window. he At least he tried. Maybe some of Heaven's hate would ease with the letter. He would think that at least getting a letter of apology to her would at least lift some of the guilt,, but to his dismay it was still there and as present as ever.

* * *

Heaven was just sitting on her bed when Martha came in. There were hesitant footsteps and then the bed shifted a little when Martha sat down.

"Hey Martha," Heaven said, offering a little sheepish smile, trying to act as if Danny had never been there, "Sorry about almost.. you know, setting the kitchen on fire." Martha gave a scoff of a laugh and shook her head.

"Oh Heaven, what are we going to do with you?" Heaven turned and saw Martha smiling softly at her, and then her curiousity peaked when she sat the crisp envelope in Martha's lap. Martha caught Heaven staring and held the letter out to her.

"Danny gave this to me to give to you." She placed the letter next to Heaven and then gave her an encouraging pat on the thigh when she subconsciously recoiled from it a bit. With that, she stood and went to the doorway, where she stopped suddenly and turned to look at the younger nurse again.

"And Heaven, we're going to the club tonight. I know you're trying to be a sulk right now, but we all know you can't resist a little dancing," Martha winked before leaving. Heaven cracked a smile. Dancing sounded pretty appealing at the moment. She looked at the letter on the bed, her curiousity rising again. She was surpsied at how tempted she was to reach forward and tear it open and read the contents, but she refrained from doing so yet, and put off the task to get an outfit together for dancing tonight. She was up and about, looking through her clothes, holding up the dresses agaisnt herself in the mirror to decide on what to wear. Despite her attemtpt to distract herself, she coldn't stop her eyes from drifting down the mirror, to the reflection of Danny's letter. It was teasing her, telling her to turn around and go read its contents.

She ignored her curiousity long enough to pick out a lavender dress. She set the dress on her bed and tentatively picked up the letter. She found herself rather liking the way Danny had written her name, a big pretty H followed by small short letters. She opened it carefully, not putting a kink or a wrinkle in it and pulled out the letter. She laid down on her bed, getting comfortable on her stomach before she began to read, chewing her lip while she did so.

_Dear Heaven,_

_First of all, I know I shouldn't have waited a month before trying to apologize. It was wrong for me too put you through that, and I'm a coward for not talking to you sooner. At first, I thought that maybe it was better that you just didn't know me, and that you forget about me and I forget about you so that we each don't have to have an extra person to worry about for as long as this war goes. I write this and I reread it and I realize even more so how stupid an idea it was, to think that I could just erase someone like you from my mind. Everything sounds better in your head, and sometimes a person says something that comes out completely wrong. I'd like to add that this is what happened that day we really fought. I should have never have said what I said that day behind the hospital. I was an idiot, and inconsiderate, and most of all.. just afraid. I'm afraid to know you better, because I'm afraid of what it will feel like if something bad ever happens. _

_I hope that you forgive me. I understand if you never want to see me again, but just know that that isn't what I want. I've realized lately that with each passing day, I think about you more. I need you in my life, to be around you. You make me feel things I don't really understand well, and the strange thing is that the more I thought about it, the more I realized I like it. You're different, and I mean that it in the best of ways. You are the girl who got me to dance. _

_I need a friend like you right now, Heaven. It's not that I don't want you as more. _

_It's that I can't have you like that. Believe me, when you walk, the guys loose their heads trying to get a look of you. And I can't find words to explain how angry it makes me when they look at you. What's more is that you don't even know its going on either. _

_I know you said you feel something for me, but I don't really know if you'd still feel for me if you knew all of me. I made mistakes that I am paying for now, and that poor Evelyn is paying for as well. I can't just move on from her and start something new with you, when I owe Evelyn so much for the deep hole I've dug for us. __I hate to tell it to you like this, but I got Evelyn pregnant. I wish I had told you sooner. I was so irresponsible, and now, so many people are hurt because of what I have done. _

_I feel like you deserve to know this before you think of me. I'm not a good choice for you, Heaven. I know that you'll meet someone who can give you everything you wish for, someone who will be something some day after this war and can support you in all of those wild dreams you have. I know that every one of them will come true too. I hope that even when you know this about me, that you can still find it in your heart to be a friend to me. I need you in my life, even if it can't be in any way more than a friend. __I know I probably seem like a coward to write this rather than look you in the eyes and say it out loud like a real man, but I was afraid that if I did I might say it wrong, like the wrong words kept coming out of my mouth behind the hospital. __I am truly sorry, Heaven. Like I said, I understand if you don't want to see me again, but it would really mean the world to me if you would. _

_Hopefully still your friend,_

_Danny_

Heaven stared at his name a couple of moments, mulling over what she'd read. She already knre about Evelyn. Barbara had slipped. It meant alot to her though, that he had told her anyway without knowing she knew. She didn't think him a coward so much anymore, for not coming before, and he didn't seem any less of a man for writing only a letter. He had tried to see her in person anyway, but she turned him down. She didn't want to talk to him. And here she was, reading his apologies anyways and realizing that she had forgave him a while ago.

She understood. She knew all too well, that she missed Danny, and that she'd rather be in his life as a friend than not at all. She just wished though, that he would open his arms for her. Evelyn might still need Danny sometimes, but that doesn't mean that Heaven didn't need Danny as well. She didn't think it quite fair, for Evelyn to have two men when Heaven had none, even if Evelyn was pregnant. She didn't see why Danny couldn't be there for her too. It wasn't like she was asking for too much. He'd said she'd find a man that was everything she could hope, but she feared that she had and he didn't want her. All she wanted is love, not much more. Heaven sighed softly and folded the letter, putting it back into the envelope and rising from the bed to place it safely tucked away in her underwear drawer.

"I forgive you," she said aloud, closing the drawer and flopping onto her bed with a big, hopeless sigh. She scoffed at herself for being so eay to string along. But still, She would try. She could be his friend if that was all he needed at the moment. And she dared to hope that maybe someday, he would need more.


	8. Chapter 8

Heaven scrubbed her hands furiously for what was probably the third time that hour, a look of distaste settled on her features. Her fingers were flushed and raw from the meticulous scrubbing under soap and hot water. Part of her sudden extremities in hygiene was because she had been working bed-pan duty today. The other part was that it was a nervous tick, brought on by the fact that they were sending more and more Americans to the Western Front, and it was only a matter of time before Danny was shipped overseas as well.

Danny and Heaven were back on each other's good graces. After Danny had written the letter (which Heaven kept in her underwear drawer and secretly reread the parts were he hinted at liking her), she had written a letter of her own. It was short, with only three words: I forgive you. It was as simple as that, and they went back to how it was before.

Heaven was stuck in the friend zone, but she coped better than she had expected herself to. Sometimes it felt like her and Danny were together anyways, minus the hand-holding and kisses and such, which Heaven craved but knew wouldn't happen. He would put his arm around her sometimes when they walked, which he usually did when he caught another guy looking at Heaven. She always enjoyed these moments, because she was allowed to enjoy the feeling of his strong arm draped over her shoulders, and it was a little reminder that some part of him liked her to the point where he didn't want her getting dates. Sometimes, even though she knew it was wrong, she would flirt just a little with other guys when they were out and about, because then Danny would get jealous and do things like grab her hand and ask her to dance like they were a real couple.

Despite what he said about having to be there for Evelyn, he was around Heaven most of the time. The two of them had become close friends, to the point where they had developed traditions. Every Sunday, they would go to the diner a couple blocks from Pearl Harbor and eat brunch, sometimes accompanied by Rafe and Evelyn, sometimes just the two of them. Heaven preferred it when it was just the two of them however, because she noticed that whenever Evelyn was around, Danny would withdraw from Heaven a little, and Heaven noticed that Evelyn did the same to Rafe. At first, it had been an awkward outing, the four of them sitting in a booth, Evelyn and Danny making awkward conversation while Rafe and Heaven watched them like hawks, which they were pretty obvious about even if they were trying to be discrete. It had mellowed out a little over time, and the four of them could have an okay time together.

Besides the brunches, Heaven would take Danny to the record store every time she heard a new one came out on the Pearl Harbor radio. She would drag him into the sound box to try out the latest tunes and then make Danny dance with her to them. She found that Danny was equally embarrassed every time, and didn't really know much about the different musicians at all. She remembered one of the first times she'd brought him there. She remembered him sitting in the little box of a room with a big glass window that kept the music in and other sounds out, perched on the stool in front of the record player, tapping his foot to the beat.

"It's good huh?" Heaven had said, unable to keep herself from dancing a little. Danny had nodded and smiled in agreement.

"It's definitely energetic, " he said, and then adopted a curious look as he asked her who it was.

"Count Basie. Swingin' the Blues," she told him, drumming her fingers against her hip. Danny's expression remained the same. Her jaw dropped the slightest bit at the clueless expression on his face.

"You don't know Count Basie!" she shouted in disbelief. Danny just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, glancing at the glass window to see if her reaction had permeated the sound barrier and reached the people flipping through records outside. She took him by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet, "Jeez is Tennessee in the middle of nowhere or what?" It was more of a statement if anything.

"Pardon me for not living in bustling California," he'd defended. She smiled as she recalled it. That was the day she learned Danny was in serious need of education on the music world. She took it upon herself to be his guide, making sure he steered clear of what was commercial and showing him the true musical wonders of the store.

Danny taught Heaven a lot as well. She found he was very smart, and he knew a lot about science and animals and of course planes. Sometimes, when there were less people there, he would bring her to the air plane hangar and show her the air planes. He never took her up like he'd done with Evelyn that one time. Danny had told her about it, only because she had asked. Heaven knew that the day he did that was Evelyn was the day Evelyn became pregnant. He was quiet afterwards, and Heaven then asked if he would take her in the air. He replied that he could get in a lot of trouble for such a thing, and Heaven swore that the look on his face was fearful. Fearful of what, she had wondered. She knew it wasn't flying. She had a theory that what he had been scared of was that if he took her in the air, what would happen to them when they landed?

Most of the time he'd help her clamber up into the cockpit like she asked, and she would sit in there, close her eyes, and pretened like she was in the air. And then she'd make Danny tell her about his adventures in the air, to which he would laugh and be modest about, saying they weren't really adventures, which irked Heaven to no end. They sounded like adventures enough to Heaven. Just flying seemed like an adventure of a life time to her.

And now, here Heaven was, scrubbing her hands even though it wasn't really necessary, about to get ready to go see Danny. She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and couldn't help but compare herself to Evelyn, starting first with her unruly hair, following her short stature to her toes. She took her nurse's cap off and took the pins out of her hair, tangled curls falling loose. It wasn't a pretty, smooth flawless chocolate waves like Evelyn's. It was all over the place. She started pulling back strands and putting the pins in again, trying to make sense of her hair. She was startled by a loud knocking on the bathroom door, which cause the pins to fall from her mouth and into the sink. She barely caught them before they slid into the drain.

"Come on Heaven, I've got somewhere to be and I'm not gonna be any less than perfect!" Barbara was yelling through the door.

"Just a minute!" Heaven called back, sticking the rest of the pins in quickly and then opening the. Barbara moved past her and then pushed her out, closing the door behind her. Heaven realized she'd left her nurse's cap in the bathroom. She leaned against the door and knocked lightly.

"Barabara? I forgot my nurse cap—" she said, and stumbled when the door was suddenly yanked open. Barabara tossed the nurse cap at her before shutting the door again. Heaven mumbled and athanksand retreated up the stairs and finish getting ready. She bumped the door closed with her rear and shimmied out of her nurse's outfit and pulled on a flowing blouse with a perhaps tacky, but equally appropriate Hawaiian flower print and then a pair of woman's trousers. She checked her appearance in te full length mirror, turning thi way and that. She pursed her lips, and then spent a couple more moments on her hair, using her finger to make the frizzy hair at the crown of her head into cute little curls. She topped it off with a light red shade of lipstick and then headed out to the hangar where she would be meeting Danny.

"Later boys," Danny said as he waved off some of the guys who had been working on the planes with him that day. All had left to go off and have an enjoyable rest of their Saturday, and it was just Danny and Rafe now.

"Got any plans tonight?" Rafe asked, wiping grease from his hands on a dirty rag, leaned against the plane, looking as easy going as ever. Danny placed his wrench into the toolbox and shrugged.

"Heaven's going to meet me here in a bit," He told Rafe, avoiding the sly smile Rafe had fixed on him.

"You guys sure spend a lot of time together," Rafe commented, and Danny knew what would come next.

"Why don't you just ask her out on a real date already? Everyone knows she's got you whipped," Rafe started, and Danny groaned. He'd seen these exact words coming. "What's worse is she's got you whipped and you aren't even going out. That's sad, my friend. Be a man."

Danny rolled his eyes. Lately Rafe had been pestering him a lot about he subject of Heaven. He said since they were going to be sent to the Western Front soon, he might as well, which made no sense to Danny because he didn't want her to have to feel like she had to wait, especially if there was a chance he might not come back. He wanted her to be living while he was away, and if it was with a.. husband, then that was the way it had too be despite how much he hated the idea.

"You know why I can't do that," Danny said, perching his sun glasses a top his head and fixing Rafe with a stern look, daring him to push him further on the subject they'd already disagreed upon over and over. Sometimes, Danny thought Rafe to be real nosy.

"I just have to say, if you have a special girl waiting for you at home, it makes your drive to get back that much bigger," Rafe said, easing off because he sensed Danny's defenses rising, "Think about it."

Rafe was about to start again when he saw Heaven herself approaching. He glanced to Danny.

"By the way, you should tell her you've been assigned. If you don't, you're going to have two wars going on, one on the field and one in your head," Rafe said, flipping the rag at Danny before heading out. Danny looked back and saw Rafe retreating, and then Heaven approaching. He took his glasses from his head and smiled at her approaching form. She looked good, he realized. Really good. He felt his throat go a little dry as he looked her over

"Danny," she greeted with a nodded, her dark brows raising as she did so.

"Heaven," he said in a similar fashion. She flashed him a red-lipped smile that he looked at with temptation. She didn't seem to notice how his gaze rested on her lips, and glanced at the plane.

"What have we got here," she asked, and he knew she was pretending again to be the expert on planes. Danny smiled and started telling her about the plane, amused at the fact that she didn't know most of the stuff he was saying but pretended to anyways. All the while though, the fact that he'd have to tell her that he had to go fight overseas soon occurred, and there was a growing sense of dread building within him. It was a whole mess his situation. Not only would he not be there when Evelyn had the baby, but he would also have to leave Heaven.

He gotten quieter as the hour passed. Heaven had asked him if she could help imfix the plane a little, and he'd agreed. While they were, he knew that Heaven was noticing his sudden mood change. She could tell their was something on his mind that was bothering him.

"Danny," she began to steer his attention away from the belly of the plane, so that she could properly analyze his expression. Danny peered up at her from where he was crouched on the ground. He looked at her expectantly, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he answered, trying to look as if she'd just asked him what color the sky was. She sighed softly, and Danny knew that he'd have to tell her sooner or later.

"Let's…" he trailed off and placed the wrench he was using back in its place, and then took to staring hard at a grease spot on the ground. He stood suddenly, taking up the toolbox, the tools clanging inside.

"Let's get out of here," he suggested. He was putting off telling her, but he didn't want it to be here and now, when she'd just showed up, looking good with her fitting pants and her red lips. He didn't want to spoil the rest of the day.

The day progressed, and Danny's mood improved with it. Heaven knew though, that there was something in the back of his mind, nagging at his conscience, and she wouldn't let it drop as they walked to town, insisting he just tell her now and get it over with.

She finally gave up though, when he assured he would tell her, putting it into her terms and going as far as pinkie swearing it to her. He knew that she knew he always thought her pinkie swear rule was a little out there, kind of embarrassing, so she knew he meant it when he promised. She let the subject drop and they moved on into the day, which consisted mostly of wandering around, Danny digging up trouble like the boy he was at heart and Heaven panicking but going along anyway with his ideas. The more things he did with her however, the more reluctant he was to tell her what he had "pinkie sweared" to tell her later. There was no backing out now though. He had to tell her, no matter how difficult it would be.

The day was coming to an end. The shadows were stretched from the lowness of the sun, an orange glow cast over Pearl Harbor. Danny noticed that at this time of day, everything looked inviting and nice, and it didn't seem like the mood could be unpleasant underneath the shroud of warmth. He hoped that maybe with such an atmosphere, Heaven would take his news about being sent to the war well.

As cheesy as it was, Danny had treated himself and Heaven to ice cream, and they were now sitting barefoot in the sand that had been warmed by the long day under the sun, Danny with a scoop of Stawberryand Heaven with a scoop of chocolate. They simply sat in comfortable silence, waiting for the sunset, Danny secretly dreading the time when he'd have to tell her. He didn't know why he was getting so worked up over it. The both of them knew that a lot of boys were being sent to Europe, and now that Danny was healed and fit as ever, the chances of him going as well werehigh, if not gauranteed. She should know that. She should understand that he was still enlisted even if it felt as if they were on some sort of vacation at times.

"How do you do that?" Heaven asked, bringing Danny back to reality. He looked at her questioningly.

"How do you keep all the ice cream in your cone?" She asked, licking a little chocolate ice cream off of her finger as if to prove her point. Danny laughed slightly and shrugged, taking a lick of his own ice cream with its perfectly spotless cone.

"Technique I guess. It's really not so hard," he told her, then showing her how to properly lick the sides so that there was no drippage. He watched her in amusement as she attempted his technique, failing miserably. He shook his head and took her cone, doing the task for her and handing it back.

"Thank you for assaulting my ice cream with your tongue," she remarked sarcastically, looking at her ice cream.

"You're very welcome," Danny answered with a smile. Heaven couldn't help but crack a smile herself. He noticed she had a little bit of chocolate ice cream at the corner of her mouth. He found himself wanting to help her with that little spot as well. It wouldn't be hard to just lean forward, put his lips on hers..

"What?" she asked, pulling him out of his trance, he pulled his eyes up from her lips to her eyes, where he willed them to stay. His eyes shouldn't be wandering over his friend..

"Do I have ice cream on my face?" she started wiping at the spots around her mouth. Danny smirked and used his thumb to get the small bit of ice cream from the corner of her mouth. Her cheeks flushed at the contact. They were still, Danny's hand coming to a rest on her face, his thumb still resting at the corner of her lip.

"Thanks," she said suddenly, her voice cracking the slightest bit as she quickly turned to face the ocean again. Danny felt his ears grow hot and he did the same. another silence settled, this time an awkward one rather than a comfortable one.

"Yeah... Sure... " He said, at loss of anything to say. They finished their ice creams. The sky had burt into various colors of warmth now, from orange and blue to pinks and purples and yellow hues. He could sense Heaven getting restless beside him, waiting for him to tell her.

"Look at the water," Danny said in a feeble attempt to distract her. The water reflected the colors of the sky, rippling and moving with the small waves that were rolling to the shore.

"Yeah," was her simple, but dreamlike response. She rose from the sand. He looked up to her to see her features lit up, faint smile on her lips.

"Let's go swimming," she suggested, looking ahead with excitement.

"Here? Now? We don't have any suits-" he started. Heaven shrugged.

"There's no one around. You're wearing underwear right? Unless you're into that whole commando thing," she laughed at her own joke, taking the pins from her hair, letting it fall about her face. His throat went dry when she reached for the first button of her blouse. She caught him looking and he realized he was still looking at her from his spot on the sand, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Give me a little privacy will you?" she giggled, to which he felt his face flush a little and he stood, stumbling over his words and feet as he stood and turned to look in the opposite direction, taking off his shirt. He hoped she hadn't noticed his somewhat clumsy movements. He stood there, in his underwear, feeling exposed and very tempted to peek over his shoulder. His hearing was strained, and he could hear fabric shuffling.

"Now count to ten, and when you get there, you can turn around," she instructed him, something different about her voice. She could feel her eyes on his back. It made him feel a little confident. He knew he was fit, and he knew that girls didn't mind him at all with his shirt off. He started counting to ten like she'd said to do.

When he reached ten, he turned around just to see her running into the whitewash, scantily clad in silk underclothes that caught the sun. His heart pounded in his chest as he looked after her. He followed, and soon met her in the water where she swam to the outside, something graceful in the way she dove under waves. She smiled at him when he caught up, and splashed water his way, the warm water meeting his face. He protested and returned the splashing.

"So," she asked, when they had come to simply floating in the calm water, past the waves, "What is it that you have to tell me, that you pinkie sweared on?" Danny suddenly went upright, touching his feet to the sandy floor. The water went up to his neck.

"What?" he asked, stupefied for a moment because he had forgotten in the bliss of being in the water, "O-Oh yeah. Of course..." He didn't look at her, but at the sun, beginning its dip into the horizon.

He heard her move in the water, and glanced at her to see her swimming, no longer floating, looking at him expectantly. She couldn't touch the sand like he could.

"Heaven, I'm just going to come right out with it," he sighed, pushing back his wet hair and turning to look her in the eye, "I'm going to the war."

He watched her carefully, watched the way her curious expression crumbled. He didn't like it at all. Her face was just blank, which scared him, considering even a complete stranger could read Heaven's always expressionate face.

"Danny.." her voice was quiet, and uneven. Her face started to change, but she then disappeared underwater before Danny could see what that expression was going to be.

"Heaven?" he asked, starting to panic when she didn't come up. Just then she resurfaced, some yards away from him, booking it to shore. Danny followed behind, swimming hard. I was difficult when he got to where the waves were. He looked up and saw Heaven was already knee deep, moving fast to the dry sand. She was good at maneuvering through the waves. He guessed you became pretty good at it when you lived by the ocean all your life. He however, had never seen the ocean until he'd first came to Pearl Harbor. It was a difficult task to keep up with her.

"Heaven!" He called again, when he'd made it out of the water. She was trudging through the sand to her things. He ran and caught up to her, trying to find his words through the heaves of air he was taking. She wouldn't look at him, focused on the water droplets falling from her hair to the sand.

"Wait," he said, "Please, please don't walk away from me." He went around in front of her, stopping her in her path. She folded her arms over her chest, refusing to meet his probing eyes.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to go, Heaven, but it's my duty I have to fulfill. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later," he tried to explain. She was still, shoulder rising and falling steadily with her breathing. There was anger rising now. Why wouldn't she say anything. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Please don't make this harder. I'm missing the baby being born too, and I-" she cut him off.

"No. I knew this was going to happen someday. I just... Hoped it wouldn't," she gave a cold laugh in spite of herself, "Stupid, I know." Danny ran a hand through his damp hair, water droplets sliding down his chin and onto the sand. She was so vulnerable, her shoulders turned in as she hugged herself, little shivers shaking her form. He couldn't stay mad, and he looked to the sky, unsure of what to do. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her he was lying about it all.

"It's not stupid. I hoped so too," he said, his voice soft and even. He couldn't take it anymore and hugged her tightly, and she obliged, her arms wrapping around his neck and holding on tightly.

"Listen to me," he said into her wet curls, finding his voice, above her ear, "I'm going away, and I'm going to write you as much as I can. You'll make new friends, have some adventures, maybe meet a guy who treats you good and maybe will want to marry you someday," he told her, his chest tightening at the thought of her getting a guy, let alone being married to someone that.. wasn't him. He continued, with a little dry laugh, " And when I get back, I'm going to kick his ass, because he still won't be good enough for you." He was relieved to hear a little chuckle out of Heaven.

"You better come back," she said into his chest, the attitude in her voice making him smile, "Or I just might marry the wrong person."

Danny tried not to let his mind fill with false hopes at what she meant by those words, and squeezed her small self in their embrace before stepping back, and bringing her chin up so he could look her in the eye, so that she could see the assurance in his face.

"I will."

He kept her at arm's length, and she looked up at him with glassy eyes. He could tell that she had been crying, which triggered a mixture of protectivemnss and an anger towards himself for being the one who brought on those tears. He felt so horrible for making her like this. She was his friend. Hi friend that he cared so much about. His friend that he couldn't help but realize had wet clothes clinging to her figure, leaving nearly nothing to the imagination. His friend who looked so beautiful, even when her eyes were red from crying. His friend that he wanted so badly to kiss.

He hadn't realized it, but he'd gotten closer to her face. He knew what was coming, and she did too, because he saw how her eyes fluttered closed, her lips slightly parted. He brought a hand to her cheek, and felt one of her own slip up is arm, coming to a rest at the nape of his neck. He started to close the distance, reaching the point where he felt her breath tickling his face, when a sharp gasp startled the two of them. Heaven jumped back, the warmth suddenly leaving Danny's arms.

There were two sun-darkened children staring at them, the older boy with a look of disgust and the young girl a look of curiosity. Danny looked down and saw a soccer ball at the space between Heaven and himself.

Heaven's face was flushed bright red, and she bent to start retrieving her clothes. Danny smiled sheepishly at the two stunned kids, and nudged the ball towards them with his foot. The boy picked it up and they ran past them, up the path through the tropical shrubbery. Danny coughed and Heaven started humming nervously.

"We should go back. It's getting dark," Danny suggested, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Uh yeah," Heaven agreed, buttoning her shirt over her wet underclothes. Danny promptly turned away and started dressing himself. He so desperately wished he'd been able to kiss her, but he knew that if those two kids hadn't interrupted them and ended things before they started, a whole lot of others feelings that wouldn't be fulfilled would distract the both of them from their soon to be separate lives. He didn't want Heaven to feel like she had to wait for him. He was already giving her false hopes that he would come back, when in reality, his chances of coming home were slim, very slim. He heaved a sigh. He wanted to throw cation to the wind and kiss the daylights out of her before his death sentence. Not a chance, he told himself.

"I'll walk you home," he said, starting in the direction of the nurse houses. She did not follow though, just stood there in the sand. He stepped towards her again, confusion contorting his features. He reached a hand towards her, for her to take it, but she glanced at it and walked past his outstretched hand. Her body language was rigid, stoic...and Danny felt that she was cold. Heaven and being _cold_weren't two things that went together. She paused and faced him, dripping curls hiding her face. The desire to push it back and reveal the rosy cheeks of her heart-shaped face, and those bright eyes that could turn anyone's defenses to butter.

"I can manage. I'll see you around," she mumbled, that withdrawn look on her face again, fiddling with her shoes and then scurrying off in the direction of the nurse housing. Danny looked after her, clueless to what had caused her to run. He thought they had sorted it out. Why did she have to make things so hard?

_I always manage to mess up,_ he thought, kicking at sand and turning in the opposite direction.


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for the wait! I could give a couple of excuses, but no one really wants to hear them I'm guessing, so all I have to say is I really wanted to get this chapter up and hopefully you'll like it. Not the best, but a couple things need to happen before we can get to the good parts :) **

**Reviews are much appreciated ;)**

* * *

He knew he was going down. He knew as soon as he broke through the dismal fog and saw the cluster of German planes approaching that death was gauranteed. They looked like an angry swarm of bees, and to them he was the curious but maliscious boy that had taken his baseball bat to the hive. He was the enemy, they were the enemy, and only a handful made it out when the two groups clashed. You only got out if luck was on your side, and unfortuneately, Danny didn't beleive in luck. He beleived that it was the sweat of a man's brow and his back-breaking labor that got a person what they wanted, as well as a tremendous amount of willpower. It was a shame that, in that moment, looking death in the face, he didn't seem to have much fight in him. The delightful fire that usually boiled his blood and started his adrenaline pumping was extinguished by the turmoil his emotions were causing in his head.

the guilt he felt was for reading Heaven's letters, but never returning them. He would open them, smell the paper for the smell of art chalk with a hint of her wild flower perfume. He would reread it over and over, her voice in his head and giving him her companionship that he so missed. He would run his fingers along the back, feeling the emotions behind her writing in the way she pressed her pen into the paper, touch the fingerpriints, the colors from her chalk pastels she used daily. He would do all that of a home-sick man, except write back and let her know that he was okay, that her letters were the only thing that made him feel his humanity pulsing somwhere inside him. He wanted too write back, and tell her how imortant she was and kind and answer all the questiions she asked, but he couldn't find the courage to do so. A part of him believed that it was better for the both of them this way, and maybe eventually she would stop writing and find herself someone that was a good man, a person that had a good education and could get a good job. Maybe she could find someone that didn't get his bestfriend's girl pregnant, and was good at more than flying and shooting down airplanes.

Reality came crashing down on Danny in the moment he saw that swarm of planes, closer than he remebered, ready to shoot him out of the sky like a duck. All his life he'd been able to rise above all hardships, both phsical and emotional, but in that moment, when he realized death was so close, what was the point of still trying? Every part of him, body and soul, was exhausted. He was shipwrecked, and had been swimming for days in dangerous waters only to realize that no rescue was coming.

Maybe it was time to succumb, and accept that the only place to rest was his own grave.

He still fought, but it didn't matter, because they still got him. He was outnumbered. The sharks dragged him down, away from an chance of rescue, even if he knew it wasn't coming in the first place.

* * *

_The fire was angry yellow. It was devouring his plane and spreading to the grass around it, swallowing anything that had the misfortune to be in the way. Danny realized he had to move before the fire's greed moved it to consume him as well. _

_Danny only had enough energy and coordination to drag himself out of the wreckage, the painful sting of the fire enough to rouse him from his stupor and take action. _

_He reached ahead of himself to dig his fingers into the moist soil, using it to pull himself across tthe ground and to a safer place than his own burning wreckage. He saw his arms, covered in his own blood, his right hand..where two fingers that had been there seemingly moments ago were lost-He wanted to wretch. His adrenaline from crashing fueled his will-power enough so that he could take refuge under a tree, laying in the cool dirt. He pressed his cheek to that dirt, the coolness of it carressing his face, like the gentle lapping waters in Pearl Harbor. He was content to lie there for as long as he needed too, even if it was for the night, until day, or forever. _

_He watched his plane burn, and then explode without flinching. He'd seen it before a thousand times, and it made no difference. He was too tired for such efforts anyways. Tired..._

_Danny felt so tired. He started to fade, and his eyes started to close. The last thing he heard before he lost cosiousness was a woman shouting. It sounded like French. __He had a limitied to almost nothing French vocabulary, but he did catch one word; Help._

Danny opened his eyes, feeling delightfully sleepy. Normally he felt overwhelmingly exhausted when he woke up, but now he felt peaceful. As he came around, he noticed a familiar scenery; White walls, white sheets, white tile, white cieling. He must be back in Pearl Harbor, something that gave him a moment to take a breath without feeling like it was his last. In Euprope, the war was ever-present, always looming over eveyones head and sucking the life out of every soul that intended to do good. He lifting his arm, examining the angry skin on his hand, making its way up his forearm in angry patches. It should have been painful. He must be on a a painkiller. A good one at that.

"Monsier Walker?" A dark-haired nurse was out of side, seemingly appearing out of thin air. She had a thick French accent. A French nurse in Pearl Harbor. Danny blinked a couple of times to see if he was imagininging things, but she remained at his side.

"How do you feel, Monsier?" The nurse continued, in her strong accent. She gave him a samll encoraging smile, and he nodded absently, realizing she'd asked him a questions. His head felt heavy to lift, but he forced himself to sit up a little. She put a hand up, motioning for him to stop, and when he did not, she had to gently nudge him back into the bed. His head was heavy and throbbing, and he dropped it back to the pillow.

"You must rest," she told him sternly, holding a glass of water up to his lips, to which he drank a sip than slid down his parched throat like a river into a dry valley. He cleared his throat and thanked her, and then asked her if she could get him Heaven.

"She's a nurse here. You know, Heaven, Heaven Fitzgerald," Danny insisted, and if he were more aware he would have known that Heaven no longer a nurse, but he was delirious. The nurse just shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Monsieur, but we are in France," she gently informed him, forcing him one more sip of water to which he swallowed mechanically.

France? Danny thought for sure he was back at Pearl. He couldn't beleive it. He was still in Europe. His heart sank. The nurse saw his expression fall, and gave him a pitiful look she probably used a million times a day.

"You have a letter," the French woman told him encouraginly, handing him an envelope that had been sitting on the small table beside him. Danny reached to take it with his left hand only to realize that it was bandaged, thick like a club, and he could not open the letter.

"Could you open it for me?" Danny asked, and the Nurse complied with her sad smile and then handed him the open envelope. It was from Heaven.

He waited until the nurse left before smelling the inside of the envelope, the scent of chalk and wilflower still their even with the strong scent of blood and soap mingling in the air.

He gingerly took the letter out with his good hand and unfolded it, only to realize it was no letter, but a picture. A picture of the place where a field meets the ocean. Even though where he had lived there was no ocean, the tall grass reminded him of the overgrown lawn that he and Ray used to run through, pretending they were Indians and Cowboys, or soldiers. The grass met the sand, and protruding from a small hill was a classic red and white lighthouse, small and shackish, the detailed peeling and faded spots giving it character. On the balcony stood the silhouette of a woman, staring out at what Danny thought of as none other than a Pearl Harbor sunset. Danny, not being a man of many words, could only explain it as such. He recognized it as that sunset and that sunset only. memories of watching the sun over the Harbor flooding from his mind. He looked at Heaven's art, and realized she had created it to remind him of a place that felt like a home. A place that reminded him of home. He was suddenly angry. The careful damn he had built to keep back his memories of home burst, and he remebered what he was missing. He felt a longing so fierce all of the sudden, and he clung to the picture like he was actually holding onto home.

There was no writing.

He hated how easily she tore down his walls. With a picture, she made him weak. Didn't she know how this would make him feel?

Of course she knew. Emotions were right up her alley.

She was infuriating.

And he loved her.

* * *

Danny was sent home when he was well enough to travel. Hs injuries were taking a while to heal and they didn't want him there longer than they could afford. So he was packed onto a small plane, with aa few other soldiers. Danny felt lucky when he sat amongst them. Some of them lost arms, legs, or were maybe even partially blind. He was lucky enough to only leave two fingers behind, and although his leg was badly crushed in different places, it would heal almost completely with time. The whole trip back, Danny believed for a moment that sometimes people truly do get lucky. He believed it straight up until he returned to his home town.

He was weary but happy to be home. He'd only just stepped of the bus and started down the familiar dusty road. People he'd grown up around waved and honked in greeting at him from their cars, shop-keepers shouted a welcome back. Familiar neighbors of Rafe invited him over for dinner, the fathers shaking his good hand, the mothers kissing his cheek with their children looking up at him from behind their skirts, staring at his bandages with apperent awe in their faces. Danny had never felt so loved in his entire life, and was a little bashful under all the attention. No one really seemed to stare at his casts and burns and scars. The small town had seen a lot of young men go, and were always pleased to see them return in practically one piece. So far things were great. Until the sheriff aproached him in the midst of all the greetings, a somber look on his wrinkled, grandfatherly face.

"Give the boy some space folks!" the sheriff's baritone voice rang out above all the chatter. People suddenly adopted a wary expression and trickled away with hesistant good-byes, sympathy clear in their eyes. Danny's suspiscion was peaked.

Once they were relatively alone, the sheriff put a hand on Danny's shoulder in a consoling manner.

"Good to have you back, son," the Sheriff said, somewhat stiff. The Sheriff was not exactly the touchy-feely type, although he called every boy "son".

"Good to be back, Sheriff," Danny replied, his tone a little unsure. The Sheriff patted him on the shoulder firmly, before spitting in the dirt and continueing, bring his sharp blue eyes up to Danny's.

"Son, I'm not exactly good at this sort of thing, but.." He paused, bowing his head and taking off his wide-brimmed hat, "Your father's dead. We buried him in the cemetery."

Danny suddenly understood everyone's sympathy, how they retreated as if walking on thin ice when the sheriff wandered in. The sheriff looked back to him with an apologetic look, but somewhere deep inside, Danny knew releif dwelled in the old man. His father wasn't exactly a great citizen, with his short temper and tendency to drink away his sorrows and responsibilities. The harsh reality was that it made the Sheriff's job easier with Danny's father gone.

He also knew that the Sheriff wasn't the only one not exactly sorry that Danny's father had passed on. He was not the most well-liked man. Sometimes he suspected that people were nice to him because they felt sorry with for him, the boy with no family but a drunken and abusive father, in a town where family is everything. A too small town where people can't seem to mind teir own business.

He didn't want their pity though, because even if his father wasn't the conventional father, he was still_ his_ father. You couldn't choose your family. You had who you had, and you had the choice to love them anyways or else have no one at all. And sometimes showing you loved that person was hard, and sometimes people had another way of showing it.

Despite the hardships, he loved his father.

Despite the bruises and scars from his unconventional childhood, his father's death still stung. It wasn't exactly the first thing he wanted to hear on his return.

He quietly thanked the sheriff, declined invitations to dinner and rides to his farm, and headed to the flower kiosk on the corner to buy flowers for his father's grave, his shoulders heavy with exhaustion and grief.

* * *

Danny mourned for his father alone. He avoided town and it's prying people. Instead, he focused on improving the much neglected home of his.

The farm was in bad shape, and he spent his first week home just cleaning up the shack as best as he could on his crutches and with one good arm. He mostly just picked up the bottles, dusted, sloppily mopped with one arm, and found the hammer from the shed to unboard the windows for a clean breeze.

Even when it was practically spotless and sunlight was streaming in, his house wasn't really a home anymore. He feared that it never really was, it seemed so unfamiliar to him. Maybe it was because he had always spent his days outside, playing with Rafe and raising hell on the town. He looked out the window, at the overgrown lawn, a sea of long grass. Strangely, that looked more home than anything. On the other side was the McCawley house, to which he was openly invited. It wouldn't have felt right though, to be there while Rafe was still across the sea.

It was quiet in his own house. Nothing but the wind and the grass, the occasional chirp of a bird.

The silence was more than he'd heard in a long while.

He hadn't come home to be alone in this silence.

He had come home for the people he loved. That was where his real home was.

Danny backed away from the window, looking around his parent's bedroom, the only room besides the kitchen and the main room, suddenly tired again. He was tired because he did not yet feel like he was home, although he was standing in the very place he was born.

He hobbled into the kitchen and sat at the rickety hand-built table, staring ahead at the wall, at the only frame on the wall. The only frame in the entire house.

Heaven's picture to him was hung, standing out against the dull brown of the wall, in a frame with no glass. The color made the rest of his house seem even shabbier. He longed to be there, watching the sunset on top of the light house. He could almost smell the salty breeze, feel Heaven's warmth as she stood beside him...

Danny stood suddenly, a little too fast. He caught his balance on the table. It wobbled dangerously on its weak legs. He walked back into the main room with a sudden conviction, kicking back the ages old rug with his crutch, a bit of dust floating into the air with the movement. He clumsily stooped to pull up a floorboard and withdraw a pretty red, wooden box about as big as his hand. He's made it when he was a boy, back when it was much bigger than his hand. At least as big as two. He still had the scar on his thumb where he'd cut himself carving a willow tree into the rusty colored wood.

He ran his fingers over the grooves, a little sloppy in their marksmanship. It was precious to him, the main reason being that it was one of the only things he'd done with his father. He gingerly opened it and inside lay his meager savings. His drew out a few coins and replaced the lid and gently lowered the box back into its hiding spot, making sure it was as unnoticeable as before.

With the cool weight of the coins in his hand, he headed out the door, and into town. Down the road, down the strip of shops. People watched him with the open, nosy curiosity small town folks usually have. He looked to be a man on a mission, with his determined hobble, eyes straight ahead, paying no attention to the strange looks he was recieving. He then turned into the post office.

He nodded to the clerk in greeting, his eyes perusing the post office with the same determination he'd maintained the whole walk from his porch. He'd made his mind up, and he was ready to take action.

"Evenin' Danny. Is there something I can help you with?" The clerk asked, raising a bushy grey eye brow.

Danny turned back to the clerk, opening his mouth, taking a few moments for the words to flow.

"Do you have a Directory?" he asked, suddenly a bit of uncertainty in his voice. The clerk appraised him a moment before turning to scan the shelf.

'Yes, I beleive we do-"

"One of California," He added, a bit of eagerness in his tone now. The clerk looked at him quizically a moment before taking down a book thicker than two bibles. He set it on the desk in front of Danny with a great dusty thump.

"You could try this here Directory. It has most places," The clerk said with a sense of pride, as if he was personally resposible for its impressive listing of places. Danny brushed some of the dust off. Apparently people didn't make a lot of phone calls out of town. He seemed pleased to have it sitting beneath his palm. He opened itcarefully, to not rip the fine pages.

"Thank you, Mr. Baker," Danny said, somewhat absently as he was already flipping through the Directory. After a bit of searching, he found a Fitzgerald family in Califnornia. He recognized the address from Heaven's letters. He felt a feeling of triumph mix in with his excitement and startling confidence.

"There she is," he mumbled to himself, then looked up at the clerk who had grown tried of watching Danny turn pages and started sorting mail.

"Mr. Baker?"

The clerk turned, looking at Danny expectantly and stroking his great salt and pepper mustache, trying to understand Danny's behavior. The first thing he does since he gets back is seek out someone in California? The clerk thought it a little strange. Maybe he'd been unable to handle the war and cracked, and thats why he'd come home after all.

"How much to make a call?" he asked, dark brows raised, a small part of his excitment reflecting in his eyes. Mr. Baker was reminded suddenly of the small boy who used to play marbles in the street with his own son. He waved his hand, as if literally waving away the expenses.

"Go ahead, Danny. This call seems important," he offered, a kind smile lighting up his features. Danny seemed hesitant at first, but Mr. Baker insisted. Danny still slid him a coin anyway, and hobbled over the the telephone, sliding the book along the counter before could protest.

With his good hand, he carefully dialed in the numbers, squinting at the small text in the Directory.

The phone rang a while, and Danny waited patiently and ready, softly tapping the counter with his bandaged hand in rythm with the ringing. Mr. Baker went into the back room, to give Danny privacy. Being the curious man he was though, Baker left the door a crack open. Who eouldn't though, in a town like thiers?

Finally, the ringing ceased, and there was a fuzzy click.

"Yello?" a young, girlish voice answered the phone, sounding a little fuzzy, but still clear enough. It must have been the distance.

"Hello, is this the Fitzgerald residence?" Danny asked, feeling a little odd with the formal tones his voice carried, when he was obviously speaking to a little girl.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't!" The little girl chirped, sounding entertained and satisfied by her own cleverness, "Who's asking?"

"Danny Walker... who wants to know?" he supplied with equal amusement in his voice, playing her little game. He used his arm cast to brush hair from his forehead.

"Rose," she said with a giggle, "Rose Louise Fitzgerald." Danny felt amusement tugging at the corners of his lips, but he was still eager to talk to Heaven.

"Is Heaven Fitzgerald there then? Is she your sister?"

"Yup, thats her. My big sis," Rose said with pride. A woman's voice was heard in the background. Danny thought he heard her ask "who is it?" Was it Heaven? It was hard to tell, because there was a dog barking in the background.

"A boy named Danny, Momma," Rose said with her innocnece exagerated, still talking into the reciever, even though she was talking to her mother, who was not Heaven. Hopefully. There were some muffled sounds and mumbles, the dog barking still in the background to add to the confusion.

"Go play with Spunky, baby," the woman said, before talking to Danny, "Hello-o?" The dog barking faded away.

"Hello, Mrs. Fitzgerald? I'm looking for Heaven?" Danny asked, a little impatient now, although he kept it out of his tone.

"Oh, my baby Heaven! -Rose! Go find Heaven!- What did you say your name was again? Danny?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Danny, as in Danny Walker?" The dark tone her voice took on made Danny uneasy.

"That's me, ma'am.." Danny felt some of his certainty begin to fade. The woman did not sound all that pleased.

"So your the boy my daughter has not said a word about to me, but keeps sending letters to, only to get little response?"

She paused, but not long enough for Danny to come up with some sort of answer besides fumbling for words he could not find.

"Have you any idea how sensitive my baby is? Why didn't you just write her back, the poor thing! She doesn't have much of an appetite anymore, she doesn't go to the diner with her friends like she used to, she just writes and paints and goes for long walks and I have no idea where she's going! Although, all these emotions are certainly doing something for her art..." She trailed off mid-drabble.

"I had no idea-" Danny managed, but was cut off again by .

"You've no idea is right. She is a special girl, and deserves to feel special, not be ignored by some.. some chump from wherever-land.." She finished lamely. Danny could see where Heaven got her insulting skills.

Danny cleared his throat, and pulled at the neck of his shirt, switching ears.

"I'd just like to speak with-"

"Oh you want to talk to her _now_. A little late isn't it, Danny-boy? Why not earlier, when she was writing you all those nice letters huh?" There was venom in her words. Danny felt the sting of her motherly ferocity.

"Please-"

"Listen Danny-boy, are you familiar with bears?"

Danny was quiet, and then he realized she was actually giving him time to say something.

"Uh, um..I am."

"Well, you should know how momma bears are with their cubs then."

"They're mighty protective I hear.."

"Yes, _Mighty _protective," she said, and he realized she was mocking his slight southern accent, "Momma bears will tear apart anyone that comes after their cubs." The images that flooded to his mind caused him to shudder.

"Yes, ma'am." Danny was very unsure of himself now.

"Listen, want to now why I'm telling you this? Because I am Momma Bear, and Heaven, she's my cub. Understood?"

"I undertand.." Danny's shoulders fell forward a bit. She sounded about ready to hang up on him, and he hadn't even had the chance to talk with Heaven, let alone hear her voice.

"And if you dare hurt my cub, I will stick my claw, _so far _up your cowardly-" There was suddenly muffling, and a bang, and Danny thought the connection had been cut. He let go a long, dissapointed sigh. Then someone spoke.

"I'm sorry, hello? Danny?"

It was finally Heaven. She was on the phone! Maybe it was worth it to sit through her mother's lecture, even though he knew he would be having nightmares about bears chasing him that night.

Danny didn't realize it, but he was smiling, the first full, genuine smile he'd smiled in months. The pain in his face was hidden by its warmth.

"Danny?" she asked again, her voice soft and familiar.

"Heaven," he said when he realized he was supposed to answer her. He heard a small sigh of releif from her side, could almost feel her warm breath coming from the reciever. He couldn't beleive he ever ignored her letters, said good-bye to her... He felt like the chump her mother accused him of being.

"Danny," she repeated, a small laugh gracing his ear. They'd pretty much been saying eachothers name and not much else.

Suddenly, Danny felt dread. He felt it because he was at loss of words, which he usually was, and the awkward telephone manners he had didn't much help the situation.

"How are you?" he asked, feeling like an idiot once the awkward sentence left his mouth.

"All is well," she said, sounding slightly amused at his awkwardness, "So you're back, huh?"

"I am.." he couldn't really beleive it himself.

"How does it feel, to be home?" She asked casually. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine she was right there with him, and that he wasn't actually alone in a post office. He felt himself loosen up a bit. He leaned into the counter.

"Actually, to be honest, it doesn't feel much like home." He shrugged.

"Wow, that's quite the dissapointment," she said with a small chuckle at the irony of it all.

"Tell me about it." He gave a small chuckle as well. Only with Heaven could the worst of moments somehow be considered funny.

There was a quiet pause, nothing but breathing.

"I miss you," she said softly, and then quickly added, sounding somewhat ashamed of her sudden confession, "I miss wreaking havoc on the hospital. I miss dancing in the record store."

"But I'm a terrible dancer, Hev," he said easily, shaking his head. Inside he was kind of hurting though, because he missed her too, although he'd covered it up for as long as he could. He could hide it, but it was still there.

"I know! How could I miss dancing as terrible as yours!" she teased.

"I've no idea."

"I need to catch you up with the music, too. I bet the last thing you've done since you got back is go to the record store."

"You know me well, then."

"_And_ I need to teach you how to dance to it."

"You do."

"When?"

Danny paused. Was she implying that he visit her? All the way over in California? It seemed so far, although he had gone further by far. He had no money to just pop up and take a vacation, and there was nothing for him in Califnoria to stay to do, besides staying for Heaven of course.. He had to get the farm back up as well, and he had to _heal_ as well. Still, he did miss her.. Just talking on the phone with her was swaying his common sense.

"I don't know.." he trailed off, uncertain.

"Come on Danny, just one visit? You could stay with us!" Danny suddenly envisioned her mother, big momma bear ready to stick her claw up places better left alone.

"I'm not sure your mother would like that..."

Heaven snorted.

"Please, that whole _Momma Bear_ thing is an act. She's sweet really..." her tone wasn't all that convincing.

"Heaven, I just..."

"Think about it! We have the beach here, and roller coasters."

"You trying to bribe me?"

''You know me well." He could almost feel her smile, hear it in her voice, as her choice of words.

"Well, I think it's working."

"Good then!" He heard something fall, and she mumbled a soft curse.

"I have things to take care of here first though," he said, thinking about how long it would be before he had the farm fixed up and sufficient again, before he had a job again. He would have to heal before he even got a job, and that could be quite a while.. He didn't want to dash her hopes though, even if he knew false hopes were wrong. It went against what he beleived.

"Alright, just don't let it be a year before you get back to me," she said. It was meant to be a teasing joke, but he could sense her hurt behind it. He felt guilt weigh down on his shoulders like a ton of bricks. He rubbed his face in exasperation. In dissapointment with himself.

"Heaven... I'm sorry. I can't begin to say how sorry I am..What a jerk I am. I should have-"

"Danny," she cut him off, "All is forgiven." She breathed a great sigh into the reciever. It made him feel somewhat better, but the guilt was still enough.. It was enough to convince that he had to go and see her. He owed it to her, even if he felt she shouldn't want him around at all.

"Alright," he said after a moment, hesitant in his answer. Somewhere inside, he felt it was a lie.

"I'll talk to you soon," she said, her relief clear in her voice. It hurt even more to hear it.

"Yeah, of course."

"Write!"

"I will."

"Bye Danny-Boy," she teased, mocking her own mother.

"Good-Bye Heaven, or should I say Baby Bear."

"Touche."

The line went dead. Danny was alone in his thoughts. He felt like a dirty liar now. It was unlikely that he could afford to go see her.

There was a part of him that would do everything in his power to fulfill his promize however, a part of him that betrayed his own common sense.

Time would tell whether or not that part of him was strong enough.


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry, it's kind of an uneventful chapter, but things will happen soon!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The silence was heavy, but Danny had become accustomed to its weight. He'd even come to appreciate it.

At night, the violent memories from the war came flooding back. The thundering explosions and whir of bullets and cries of the wounded; Relief only came when he shot up in bed, covered in a sheen of sweat, breathing heavily, and the weight of the silence was there to crush the chilling chorus of war that tortured him every night.

He would slip out of bed, the adrenaline would make sleep impossible, and walk out onto the porch where he would sit in his father's rocking chair and listen to the lonesome sounds of the night. Sometimes, silent tears would stream down the contours of his thinning face. His father always told him that men didn't cry, even though as a boy he had sometimes heard his fathers soft sobs in the dead of night.

It seemed pointless to fight the tears. There was no one around to be brave for anymore. The grief he felt was strong now, because he wasn't so caught up in worrying about stayng alive, as he had when fighting overseas. When there is no one to be strong for, no distraction to focus on, grief comes crashing down like an avalanche.

This had become Danny's nightly routine. Next thing he knew, a month was gone. It was the beginning of June, and the nights were warming up, the heat making what little sleep he could ever achieve more difficult.

Danny rose from bed as always, and went out onto the porch, clothed in only his underwear, but still sticky with the summer heat. It was a little cooler outside. He looked up at the clear sky, the stars shining with such clarity that t made his own thoughts seem a little clearer.

It dawned on him just how tired of mourning he was, and how his isolation was doing nothing to improve his state of mind. It was the opposite really.

Maybe home wasn't the place to remember bad memories. They only seemed to intensify. Maybe the key to moving on was to really, _move on. _He couldn't sit around waiting for Rafe to come back and take the reins as he always had. Who nows when Rafe would be back anyways. In the words of Rafe, it was time to grow a pair.

He sat up from the rocker and made his way to the kitchen. He lit a couple of candles at the rickety table that was covered in old wax and two neat stacks, one of papers and one of envelopes. He sat down in front of the stack of papers, his halfwritten letter to Heaven glowing in the orange candlelight.

_Dear Heaven,_

_I'm not sure I'll ever leave this place. Theres too many memories. I grew up on this land. My father was buried in the cemetery not too far from here. My father built this house. I was born in it and my mother died it it. It just seems wrong some how, to leave this place, when it has been the only constant in my life..._

Danny read the letter. And then he picked it up, and ripped it right down the middle. He let the halves flutter to the ground, and picked up his pen. He pressed it to the paper, determined to write it out before he changed his mind.

_Dear Heaven,_

How does he start a letter like this? Should he really explain, or just keep it short, sweet, and simple. Simple was his best approach. He was fairly good at simple.

_Know of any places I can stay in California?_

The already mostly empty shack that Danny lived in was now completely vacant, stripped of any memorable possesion, which even then didn't amount to much. The memories were in the fields, on the streets and thickets and creeks. But its notlike he could pack any of those things in a suitcase.

Danny left all the furniture, the mattresses, even the dishes. He only had a duffel bag and a suitcase with a combination that held anything of value, his important papers, pictures Heaven drew for him, old family photos, letters he didn't have any heart to throw out, souvenirs from Pearl Harbor.

He was tossing the suitcase in the passenger seat when he heard the crunch of footsteps o the dry dirt. He turned, expecting the buyer, Mr. Shannon, but instead he saw Rafe's mother, standing there, sad little smile on her perfectly painted red lips and a grocery bag in her arms. He smiled brightly at the woman, who had been like a mother to him his whole life, who had filled his belly as well as her own children's, who had bandaged him up when he had scraped his knee.

"Hey Mrs. McCawley," Danny greeted her with warmth, and a bit of his own sadness as well. It was the McCawleys he would miss the most from his home. They practically were his home.

"Hello, Danny," she said, her voice wavering a bit, she looked at him with the kind of look a mother gives her child, when they finally leave the nest. It was the second time she'd given him that look. The other time had been when he and Rafe left for Pearl Harbor. She looked down, as if suddenly remebering the grocery bag. She held it out to him, lifting her chin a bit in the process because she was a dignified woman, "Well, I figure you didn't plan food all that well for the drive, so I brought you some things that won't go bad. Beef jerky, some apples- you'll have to eat those early on of course- some canned foods.." She looked up to the sky, as if exasperated, "you boys were always so impulsive. It's a good thing you have me."

Danny laughed and accepted to bag, placing it on the passenger seat.

"I know, Mrs. McCawley, I would have never made it without you," he said, and added jokingly, "Even if your cooking doesn't always agree with my stomach."

Mrs. McCawley acted appauled and shook her head at him, "And yet you always inhaled it anyways and became the chubby little boy I remember."

Danny laughed, putting a hand over his heart in mock hurt.

"Gee, Ma'am, now that there was a bit insensitive." only scoffed at him, but opened her arms to him. Danny complied and hugged her tightly, the stubborn woman that'd he'd always think of as a mother.

"Tell Rafe to write this address when he gets home," Danny said when she'd released him, and gave her a slip of paper with Heaven's address, until he got settled in his own place.

"I will, but if you two boys want to visit, it's gonna be here, 'cause Rafe's not going anywhere for a while once he gets home," she told him, and then gave him a kiss on the cheek, "Be safe Danny. California is a wild place I've heard.."

"I will," he promised. With that, she left, back through the beaten down path in the grass he had followed many times as a boy. He rubbed his cheeck, knowing her red lipstick had probably left its mark.

Soon, the new family drove up, ready to finish signing off papers. The Shannons were a decent bunch from the city, who decided that they wanted their children, a 6 year old boy and a 4 year old girl, to be raised in a healthier environment then the bustling town. While the adults talked about the land some, and how to improve the shack of a home, the two young children took off in the grass, playing some sort of Cowboy and Indian game. It made Danny smile. He had played the same games in the same tall grass so long ago. Now it was another generation's turn to explore all that the land had to offer.

The sun was high in the sky before Danny finally left, rolling down the dry dirt road, past the field that had never contained more than a modest garden in all the years he'd lived there. He wondered what it would bear for the Shannons. He glanced in the rear view mirror, taking one last look at the shack, also small and modest. He suddenly heard Heaven's voice in his head, telling him that it was bad luck to look back. He wasn't superstitious, but the overwhelming desire to move on made him focus on the road and not look back once more. The wind blew in his face, the air smelled sweet, and things were finally looking up.

_Dear Heaven,_

_Know of any places I can stay in California?_

_Love,_

_Danny_

She could hardly believe the words. She'd carried it around with her for the past week. How long ago had it been when he'd actually written it? A week? Two weeks? Does that mean he would be there soon? Or was he waiting for her reply? If so, what would she tell him? Although she'd acted like nothing had ever changed in her letters, she was different.

She looked up at her powdered face in the vanity, the whiteness of it conflicting with her tan summer complexion. Her lips shone a red that was more seductive than any other color she'd ever worn. Her cheeks were too pink. Even her hair was different, no longer long but to her sholders, in the fashion that most women wore it brushed and re-curled, even though it dissagreed with her real hair.

This was not the same Heaven from before.

And what would Danny think of Gabriel? Speaking of Gabriel, she had to go to work.

Heaven bicycled to _Bambino's_, the italian resturaunt where she was a waitress. She parked her bike behind, and went in through the back door, into the kitchen where the aromas of italian food and their cooks greeted her. She put on her best smile for them, and tied her waitress apron around her waist.

She headed into the resturaunt, which was much quieter than the kitchen, and not so busy due to the fact that it was early in the afternoon. She was getting ready to head over to her section, where a man had sat down and began browsing the menu, when someone grabbed the back of her apron and pulled her to the hallways to the bathroom, making her stumble.

"Gabriel," she hissed, adjusting her apron.

She glared up at him, an exasperation rising and making her irritable. Gabriel worked in the kitchen as a dishwasher. His hands, cold from being recently washed, rested on her arms.

"What?" he asked, shrugging, his trademark devilish smile coming into place, "Can't a guy kiss his girlfriend?" With that, he leaned down. Heaven dodged his kiss, his lips landing on the space just beside her lips.

"Is somone in a mood?" he asked again, attempting another kiss. She squirmed against his grasp and pulled away quickly when his lips touched hers, as if they were as cold as his hands.

"I've got a person in my section I've got to get to," she argued, and squirmed against his grasp again. Gabriel chuckled, his blonde brows shooting up.

"They can wait," he said, his voice low, sounding almost like a growl. He put his lips to her neck. Heaven sighed, exasperated, but the fight she'd once had was not as strong as it once was, and she let him kiss her for a minute, before she pushed him away.

"Okay, now I really have to go," she warned, and she was finally relinquished. Gabriel's blue eyes narrowed.

"Jeez, alright. You don't have to be such a prude," he spat before going back to the kitchen. Heaven watched him go, her throat tight with hurt. Gabriel was a good man, despite the fact that he sometimes had cutting words when he was angry. She'd always told herself this when she craved a gentler nature, like the one that Danny possesed...

A long while ago she had decided that Danny was never coming back to her. She couldn't wait for him forever, in the words of her mother. So she got a job. And she made some new friends. And she met Gabriel, who was handsome with ocean-blue eyes and golden hair, and he knew it too. When he set his sights on Heaven, they played cat and mouse a while, and she finally gave in to his charm. Whhy not?, she had asked herself.

And then, Danny had started writing her again. It tore her heart in two once more.

She kept writing, and although some cynical part of her had expected him to stop talking with her as he had before, he kept on, and recently, sent her a promise of visiting. She could feel that promise, folded up in the pocket of her dress.

She didn't think she'd have to heart to continue seeing Gabriel with Danny around, even if Danny only wanted a friendship with her.

Her feet carried her to the table with the patiently waiting diner, her head somewhere up in the clouds. She pulled her pen and pad out and kept her eyes trained on it, not willing to deal with putting on a fake smile for the customer, and greeted hello, my-name-is-Heaven-and-I'll-be-your-waitress-today-can-I-start-you-off-with-something-to-drink?

"Sure, but only if you'll have one with me."

His voice was so familiar. Too familiar. Scratch that, she'd recognize that deep timber with a hit of country anywhere.

"Danny?" she asked, disbeleif flashing in her eyes as she lowered the pen and paper and got a good look at him. Her jaw fell ajar when she saw him, smiling up at her with his bright smile, the same small gap she had loved still there. His face was a little thinner and tired-looking, his hair was a little longer and unkept, from travelling maybe, and a couple of new scars flecked his face. He was as handsome as ever to her.

"It is you! You came!" she suddenly attacked him with a hug, tackling him right there in the booth, not caring that the diners around them were casting odd looks at them. She was so caught up in the moment, asking him more questions than he could answer, that she didn't notice the manager come up behind her.

"Easy, dolce cuore, you might scare away my customers," the manger warned, Mr. Bambino himself, in his thick italian accent. Heaven jumped up so fast she almost knocked herself off balance. She tried to keep her giddiness contained, but giggles laced her response, "Sorry boss, he's an old friend. He fought in the war. He was a fighter pilot!" Among her tone of happiness was pride. Danny looked very shy all of the sudden, like a shy school boy who'd been given praise. Mr. Bambino rubbed his thinning head of hair, eyes raised.

"Is that so? Mio dio! Give the boy a drink on the house!" he patted Danny on the back, slapping him on the back with that same pride that most men also showed when he first came home. He turned to Heaven, "This here is a good, good boy, dolce cuore, treat him very well. But why you workers always bring your lives to the resturaunt! This is work! Oh, mio dio, you all will never learn.." Mr. Bambino clapped Danny on the back once ore, before walking away, mumbling in Italian. Danny looked at Heaven, a laugh threatening.

"Sorry to get you in trouble," he chuckled. Heaven looked surprised.

"What, him? He's always like that, saying he doesn't want to know about our personal lives, but we all know he secretly does," she winked, picking up her pen and pad off the table. She smiled at him a couple of moments, ecstatic that Danny was finally withing arms reach. She realised she was simply staring at him, and coughed lightly.

"Sorry about that. How about that free drink?" she asked him. Danny stood up though, shaking his head.

"I actually just came to say hello," he told her. Heaven's face fell. _He's leaving already!_ she thought. Sensing this, he reassured her, "I have to find a place to stay, or at least park my truck where it won't get towed-"

"Stay with us!" Heaven blurted out before he could continue. She sensed her over-excitement and cleared her thought, continuing in a calmer manner, "I mean, you ca stay at my house. It's right by the beach, and my mother would be happy to have you."

Danny looked afraid.

"Mama bear?" he asked, raising a brow. Heaven scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Please, she wouldn't hurt a fly. She just likes to talk tough. It entertains herself or something," she explained. Danny looked unsure, so she pushed on, "Please, just stay with us. I insist. My Daddy could use some help with fixing our car too anyways. He knows next to nothing about cars." She looked at him hopefully. Danny resisted looking at her, because he knew he was likely to give in if he did. He looed at her anyways, and inwardly curse.

"Alright," he agreed, then added in a teasing tone, "Only 'cause you begged me too..." Heaven snorted and slapped him playfully on the arm.

"Please, I just know you won't make it a day in this town without me," she quipped.

"Oh, I see how it is."

"Well good then. Meet me at this address, at 5 'o'clock..." She scribbled down an address on her paper pad and tore it out, handing it to him, "Don't be late, or Mama _will_ have a fit." That convinced Danny, as he took the paper. Heaven laughed at the fearful expression on his face. Honestly, it was pretty funny to see a big man, who flew planes in a war and risked his life over and over, afraid of none other than her mother. She laughed outwardly. Danny glanced at her in confusion.

"I'll see you then ok? I gotta get back to work, or Mr. Bambino might really fire me," she said, standing up on her tip toes and kissing him on the cheek. She was releuctant to have him leave, but the comfort of knowing she would see him soon was there. Dany bid her farewell, and walked to the door. She watched him, all the way to his truck through the window. He waved to her and smiled once more before starting it and driving off.

She went back to work, taking order and bringing food. She bumped into the Hostess, Annie, on her way to the kitchen.

"Hey Annie, Sorry bought that," Heaven said, laughing a little at her own clumsiness. Annie raised a brow.

"Someone's in a good mood," Annie said suspiciously. She looked t her nails with nonchalance, "Could it be that fine specimen of a man that was in here a bit ago?" She raised a brow at Heaven, gauging her reaction.

"What?" Heaven realised what she could be implying, "Oh Danny. He's my friend." It made her uncomfortable that Annie thought of Danny as attractive, especially when Annie was known for getting what she wants. Annie just nodded, looking unconvinced.

"Well, you're lucky Gabriel didn't see that. He sure looked like a lot more than a friend," and with that Annie went back to work, leaving Heaven there as she remembered.

Right. Gabriel..


End file.
